Walgreen Posts 69% Earnings Jump; AmerisourceBergen Acquires CVS Unit
Tuesday, September 27, 11:51 AM ET

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Profits rose to $792 million, or $0.87 per share, from $470 million, or $0.49 per share, last year.

Adjusted earnings of $0.57 per share were ahead of analyst expectations.

Revenue rose 6.5%, to $18 billion, on 4.4% same-store sales growth.

Walgreen noted that it has not made substantive progress in contract renewal negotiations with pharmacy benefit manager Express Scripts (NASDAQ:ESRX). It had said in June that negotiations had been unsuccessful, and therefore Walgreen was planning not to be a part of the Express Scripts provider network as of January 2012. Walgreen said it is working with a number of partners to explore all its options.

And rival CVS Caremark (NYSE:CVS) is trading up 2.5% Tuesday, after AmerisourceBergen (NYSE:ABC) said it is going to acquire a CVS subsidiary.

Pharmaceutical service company AmerisourceBergen said it has agreed to acquire TheraCom, which provides a range of support to pharmaceuticals and biotechnology drug manufacturers, for $250 million.

The acquisition is expected to be accretive to earnings in fiscal 2013, Amerisource said, and is expected to close in the first quarter of its 2012 fiscal year, which ends December 31, 2011.