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ACG San Francisco Lunch Event

ACG San Francisco Lunch Event

ACG San Francisco Presents: The Transformation of Longs Drugs Stores 

“The Story Behind the Dramatic Improvement in Operating and Financial Performance”

When: Thursday, June 18, 2009  11:30 AM  – 1:30 PM

Where: Bankers Club, Pacific Room, 555 California Street, 52nd Floor
Speaker: Steve McCann, Former CFO, Long’s Drug Stores

Steve will discuss the transformation that took place at Longs Drug Stores from 2000 to its sale to CVS Caremark in October of 2008. By 2000, the retail drug store industry was flying high with the double-digit growth of the number of prescriptions that were being written. Grocery stores and mass merchants were beginning to put pharmacies in their stores. Mail order prescriptions were beginning to take hold and increasing. Walgreens and CVS were growing their store count and their profitability dramatically and Walgreens was making a big push into California-where Longs had long been the dominant player (especially northern California). Longs financial performance, on the other hand had been erratic and returns had been deteriorating. The increased competition combined with a very autonomous, decentralized operating strategy was taking its toll on the company and its performance. Steve will take you through the strategic and operational challenges and changes that resulted in Longs market capitalization increasing from the $500 million range to $2.6 billion (sale price to CVS Caremark).

Bio: Steve McCann, a native of the St. Louis Missouri area, graduated from Southern Illinois University with a degree in accounting. He began his career with Touche Ross, an international public accounting firm. He soon moved on to retail though and in total has spent 30 years as a retailer. While Steve worked in retail in high school and college, his real retail education started with May Department stores. He began as an accounting supervisor in May’s corporate office in St. Louis, Missouri but soon moved out to the May operating divisions- ending up as the Vice President Controller of Robinsons-May, a 60 store, $1.6 billion division in southern California, Nevada and Arizona. Steve then moved on to Service Merchandise, a 400-store specialty catalog showroom retailer headquartered in Nashville, Tennessee eventually becoming the Senior Vice President of Finance. Finally, Steve was recruited to become the Chief Financial Officer of Longs Drugs in Walnut Creek in April of 2000.
Steve was a member of company’s executive committee as well a member of the Management Committee of RXAmerica-the company’s 9 million live Pharmaceutical Benefit Management subsidiary. Steve was responsible for finance, administration, investor relations and public relations for Longs. In addition, he was responsible for strategy and mergers and acquisitions. Steve retired as Executive Vice President Chief Financial Officer in October of last year with the consummation of the sale of Longs to CVS Caremark.
Steve has been married for 25 years and has three daughters. In his spare time he enjoys golf and being out on the lake with his family.