Phar-Mor's remaining 73 stores will be closed as part of the roughly $141 million sale to a group that includes the Pittsburgh-based Giant Eagle supermarket chain. Phar-Mor's store in Hermitage Towne Plaza is next to Giant Eagle.

"The creditors are pleased. The management of this company would have liked to see employment preserved and some of the stores to continue. It's unfortunate," said Phar-Mor Chief Administrative Officer John Ficarro.

The winning bid came from a joint venture of Giant Eagle, CVS Corp. of Rhode Island, and investment firms Ozer Group of Boston and Hilco Merchant Resources of Chicago.

Giant Eagle and CVS will take over the prescriptions lists at the remaining stores and hire up to 80 Phar-Mor pharmacists to meet the increased demand.

Giant Eagle also will give preferential hiring status to hundreds of Phar-Mor's 3,500 employees, Ficarro said.

The investment firms will liquidate Phar-Mor's inventory. Phar-Mor will auction off its remaining store leases and use the money to pay creditors.

Phar-Mor will submit its bid selection today to federal bankruptcy Judge William Bodoh.

Minnesota-based Snyder Drug Stores Inc. submitted a bid that would have kept some of Phar-Mor's locations open. Snyder's bid fell about $1 million short and the company withdrew it late Tuesday, Ficarro said.

Talks ran late into the night Tuesday at Phar-Mor Centre in downtown Youngstown.

The difficulty in selecting a bid was trying to figure out which is the highest, Ficarro said. Each bid contained different numbers of stores and assets.

Phar-Mor filed for bankruptcy protection in September and has been in bankruptcy court twice since 1992. Phar-Mor has stores in eight states, mainly in Ohio, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Virginia.