Pharmor

656 Words2 Pages

Michael “Micky” Monus and David Shapira founded Phar-Mor in 1982. David Shapira was the Chief Executive Officer of Giant Eagle. Inc, a family-owned grocery chain with 50 locations. In 1981 Giant Eagle acquired Tamarkin Co., a privately owned grocery chain, where Michael Monus served as its vice-president. Within a year, Michael Monus and David Shapira partnered up to establish Phar-Mor, Inc. Their goal was to successfully integrate to the fast-growing deep discount market with the introduction of Phar-Mor. Michael Monus served as the President of Phar-Mor and Shapira served as Chief Executive Officer. Monus picked his hometown Youngstown, Ohio for the company’s headquarter. Giant Eagle, Inc. owned 50 percent of Phar-Mor. (“Phar-Mor History”)

This deep discount drugstore chain started with one store in 1982, but because of its major success, within seven months, the second store was opened. Within a year there were eight Phar-Mor stores. In 1988, the chain featured 100 stores. Monus was named one of the nation’s leading entrepreneurs in News Weekly. In 1990 Phar-Mor surpassed the 200-store mark. By 1992, the company opened up 310 stores with sales of $3 billion. Phar-Mor Inc. was named one of the top ten deep discount drug store chains in the United States. (“Phar-Mor History”) As the company grew, its product mix expanded from prescription and over-the-counter drugs, health and beauty aids to include more general merchandise, including office equipment, sporting apparel, videos, music, and frozen foods.

Phar-Mor’s business model was based on selling large quantity of merchandise with a very small profit margin. All of the products in Phar-More were lowly priced. Monus engaged in the concept of “power buying” in which he loaded ...

... middle of paper ...

... had closed or sold 167 of its 310 stores, slashed its employee number from over 25,000 to 9,800, and shed superfluous merchandise lines to concentrate on health and beauty aids, drugs, and food. Phar-Mor was unable to compete with emerging deep chained discount stores such as Walmart and Target, and filed bankruptcy for the second time in September 2001. The company was delisted from the NASDAQ Stock Market on October 10, 2001 and the company went out of business in 2002. (“Phar-Mor History)

Works Cited

"A View of an Accounting Fraud and Litigation Inside the Courtroom." Mc-Graw Hill. Mc-
Graw Hill, n.d. Web. 28 Mar. 2014.

Gilmore, Jim, Paul Judge, and Paul Solman. "How to Steal $500 Million." FrontLine. PBS. PBS,
8 Nov. 1994. Television. Transcript.

"Phar-Mor History." International Directory of Company Histories. St. James Press, 1996.
Web. 26 Mar. 2014.

Open Document