If you are planning on taking Walgreens private, wouldn't you want to pay as little as possible to do so? And, once you own the company, wouldn't you want to "improve" it easily to make as much money as you can when you sell it or have it go public again?
For instance, is it possible that Pessina/Sycamore/etc. intentionally:
Created a bad anti-theft policy so Walgreens would incur losses that could easily be made up after changing this policy later.
Created bad losses like the doctor office scheme, etc.
Paid massive amounts of money out to 'leaders' who were either friends or affiliated with each other.
The reason I thought of this is because of all the new over-stock all the stores are getting. They obviously held back on stocking the stores immediately before the sale and then after the sale, went back to making sure stores are fully stocked. That is at least somewhat of a manipulation. What else did they do.