The Walgreen Company to acquire British pharmacy chain for $5.27 billion, will keep headquarters in the U.S.

(Image credit: Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

last updated 8 January 2015

Despite speculation of an overseas move, The Walgreen Company announced Wednesday that it would acquire the rest of British pharmacy chain Alliance Boots — but that it will keep its corporate headquarters in the United States. The Walgreen Company's iconic chain of Walgreens stores is the largest drug retailer chain in America.

The Walgreen Company will pay $5.27 billion in cash in addition to shares to acquire the last portion of Alliance Boots that it did not already own. And while many had pinpointed Walgreens as ripe to take advantage of "tax inversion" and angle for a move overseas, the company announced that it would instead remain based in the Chicago area. According to The New York Times, this is because The Walgreen Company would have had to negotiate a new agreement with Alliance Boots in order to execute an inversion deal, and Alliance Boots was unwilling to do so.

Instead, Walgreens can continue to market itself as America's drugstore — and avoid some of the flack that fleeing for lower taxes might have elicited from the public. In a news release, the company touted its "unique role as an iconic American consumer retail company" and said it "concluded it was not in the best long-term interest of our shareholders to attempt to re-domicile outside the U.S."