Walgreens Boot Alliance Fiscal first-quarter earnings beat Wall Street estimates on Thursday after an early flu season boosted demand for cough-and-cold drugs.
The company said it also raised its full-year revenue outlook in part due to its US healthcare segment’s acquisition of Summit Health. For the last quarter, however, segment revenues were below expectations.
Shares of the company fell more than 4% before the bell.
Here’s how Walgreens fared in its fiscal first quarter compared to what Wall Street expected, based on a Refinitiv analyst survey:
- Earnings per share: $1.16, adjusted, vs. $1.14 expected
- Revenue: $33.38 billion vs. $32.84 billion expected
Despite strong sales, Walgreens posted an unadjusted loss of $3.7 billion, or $4.31 per share, for the three-month period ending Nov. 2. 30, compared with net income of $3.58 billion, or $4.13 per share, a year earlier.
The loss was driven by a $5.2 billion settlement that Walgreens was ordered to pay for opioid litigation After a number of alleged states, the company mishandled prescriptions and should have realized it was prescribing the ultra-addictive drug too often.
Thanks to an early flu season and high demand for over-the-counter cough and cold medicines, sales jumped to $33.38 billion, down slightly from $33.9 billion a year earlier. The company also saw sales of beauty and personal care products increase, helping to offset losses from a drop in demand for Covid vaccines and home testing kits, which have generated profits in previous quarters.
Over the past five quarters, Walgreens has exceeded Wall Street expectations as the ubiquitous drugstore chain continues to transform from a drugstore-led retailer to a broader healthcare company.
Although the company has made significant investments to achieve this vision, sales in its U.S. healthcare segment were below expectations at $989 million, but were still up significantly from the period. the previous year.
The company is in the CareCentrix acquisition processwhich coordinates home care for patients after discharge from hospital, and Shields Health Solutions, a specialty pharmaceutical company.
This is on top of the $5.2 billion deal it already has with primary care provider VillageMD, which has Opening of a total of 393 clinics adjacent to Walgreens stores.
Since the end of last quarter, 59 additional VillageMD clinics have been opened and the program will continue to grow after the provider announced plans to acquire emergency care provider Summit Health-CityMD for about $8.9 billion. The deal was closed on Tuesday.
The acquisition led Walgreens to raise its full-year sales forecast from $133.5 billion to $137.5 billion.
Following the announcement of the Summit Health acquisition in November, Walgreens raised its targets for its healthcare segment to $14.5 billion to $16 billion in fiscal 2025, up from the previous target. from 11 to 12 billion dollars.
The company also maintains its full-year earnings per share guidance of $4.45 to $4.65, versus estimates of $4.50.
The release of the results comes after Walgreens confirmed it would be among drugstore chains to offer the abortion pill mifepristone after the Food and Drug Administration ruled it could be sold in pharmacies.
“We intend to become a certified pharmacy under the program,” the company told CNBC on Wednesday evening.
“We are working on registration, the necessary training of our pharmacists, as well as evaluating our network of pharmacies based on where we normally distribute products that have additional FDA requirements and we distribute them in accordance with federal and state laws.”
Read the company’s earnings release here.
— CNBC’s Bertha Coombs contributed to this report.
0 Comments