UPDATE: Walgreen Posts In-Line Q4 Profit, Shares Rise

Walgreen Co

reported in-line profit for the fourth quarter. The Deerfield, Illinois-based company posted a quarterly net loss of $239 million, versus net earnings of $657 million, in the year-ago quarter. The company's net loss per share was $0.25 per share, versus earnings of $0.69 per share. Its adjusted earnings came in at $0.74 per share in the latest quarter. The latest quarter earnings were negatively impacted by $0.90 per share non-cash loss on the amendment and exercise during the quarter of the company's Alliance Boots call option. Its sales increased 6.2% to $19.06 billion. However, analysts were expecting earnings of $0.74 per share on revenue of $19.02 billion. Walgreen's comparable sales surged 5.4% in the quarter. Front-end comparable store sales rose 1.3%. Customer traffic in comparable stores slipped 2.2%, while basket size rose 3.5%. Prescription sales rose 9.3%, while prescription sales in comparable stores surged 7.8%. The company generated free cash flow of $1.1 billion in the quarter and operating cash flow of $1.4 billion. It opened or acquired 46 new drugstores in the quarter, up from 33 in the year-earlier quarter. “Our fourth quarter performance was in line with our expectation, recognizing we have much more to do. We closed the fiscal year by exercising the option for the second step of our strategic transaction with Alliance Boots, completing the transition of our pharmaceutical distribution to AmerisourceBergen and driving continued improvement in our daily living business that resulted in our largest year-over-year quarterly and fiscal-year sales increases in three years,” said Walgreens President and CEO Greg Wasson. Walgreen shares rose 2.48% to $61.08 in pre-market trading.