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Bloomberg
Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc maintained its guidance for 2022 earnings even as the drugstore chain beat Wall Street’s estimates for fiscal third-quarter profit and revenue, another hiccup after it abandoned the planned sale of its UK pharmacy unit.
Adjusted earnings were 96 cents a share, Walgreens said in a statement, compared with the average estimate of 94 cents, and sales of $32.6 billion also beat expectations. The company kept its outlook for low-single digit earnings growth.
CEO Rosalind Brewer’s strategy for Walgreens is under scrutiny after the company abandoned its planned sale of the UK Boots chain, expected to bring more than $6 billion, saying it failed to get the desired value. The decision to hang on to Boots is likely to impact the company negatively in the longer term, according to Raymond James analyst John Ransom.
Walgreens is retaining “a structurally declining drugstore asset that failed to attract suitors at a price it wanted,†Ransom said.