Jean Coutu Group
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The Jean Coutu Group (PJC) Inc. TSX: PJC is a Canadian company headquartered in Longueuil, Quebec with its Jean Coutu Group (PJC) U.S.A. Inc. in Warwick, Rhode Island. The company is the second largest distributor and retailer of pharmaceuticals and related products in North America. There are 268 franchises throughout Canada and more than 1,800 corporately-owned stores in the United States.
In the United States, Jean Coutu operates primarily along the east coast, trading as Brooks Pharmacy in New England and Eckerd Pharmacy from Upstate New York and Pennsylvania south to Georgia. Coutu purchased Brooks in 1994 from the now-defunct Revco drug chain. (Revco had only acquired Brooks a few months earlier as part of its acquisition of Hook-SupeRx, Inc, once a large operator of several pharmacy chains.) In mid-2004, Coutu acquired more than half of the Eckerd store network (mainly units along the eastern seaboard) from department store retailer J.C. Penney and has since continued to operate those stores under the Eckerd name. From 1999 to 2004 the chain was the second fastest growing retailer in the world.[1] On August 24, 2006 Rite-Aid announced that it would acquire 1,858 Jean Coutu's Eckerd and Brooks US operations. [2]
The company was co-founded in 1969 by the namesake, as a pharmacy in the East end of Montreal. In 1973 Jean Coutu bought a warehouse and started the franchising operations which would eventually make the company a pharmaceuticals retail conglomerate.
