Walgreens Boots Alliance introduced Thursday that it’s postponing its observe of paying money dividends to stockholders — the primary time it received’t pay a quarterly dividend in 92 years.The exchange comes amid struggles for the Deerfield-based retail pharmacy massive. Walgreens introduced plans in October to shutter 1,200 retail outlets over the following 3 years, together with in Chicago. Walgreens has been chopping prices for years, together with via layoffs in Illinois and different places.Walgreens stated in a information liberate Thursday that it used to be postponing quarterly dividends “as control continues to guage and refine its capital allocation coverage in line with the corporate’s broader long-term turnaround efforts.”Prior to now, Walgreens Boots Alliance and its predecessor corporate, Walgreen Co., had paid quarterly dividends to stockholders for 368 consecutive quarters, or 92 years.The exchange is aimed toward bettering Walgreens’ budget through lowering debt through the years and bettering money waft, Walgreens stated within the liberate. “The corporate’s money wishes over the following a number of years, together with with appreciate to litigation and debt refinancing, have been necessary issues as a part of the verdict to droop the dividend,” Walgreens stated within the liberate.Walgreens had a web lack of $265 million within the first quarter of this 12 months, when compared with a web lack of $67 million all through the similar quarter the former 12 months.Beneath earlier CEOs, Walgreens had aimed to turn out to be extra of a well being care vacation spot, together with through making an investment billions of bucks into number one care supplier VillageMD with plans to place Village Clinical clinics in 1,000 of its retail outlets through 2027. Walgreens, alternatively, has reversed route on that plan, announcing in an August submitting with the Securities and Alternate Fee that it used to be taking into account promoting all or a part of its VillageMD trade. Present CEO Tim Wentworth has stated that Walgreens needs to refocus on being a “retail-pharmacy-led corporate.”Walgreens has additionally struggled for years with problems associated with medicine repayment and converting shopper behavior, amongst different demanding situations.Regardless that the corporate had a web loss in its most up-to-date quarter, probably the most working loss used to be associated with the prices of retailer closures, and gross sales higher 7.5% within the quarter when compared with the similar quarter within the earlier 12 months.“Whilst our turnaround will take time, our early growth reinforces our trust in a sustainable, retail pharmacy-led working style,” Wentworth stated in a information liberate about profits previous this month.It’s no wonder that Walgreens selected to droop its dividend so that you can unencumber money, pay down debt and concentrate on solving its operations, wrote John Boylan, a senior fairness analyst for Edward Jones, in a notice to traders Thursday.“We view this as a prudent step to enhance its money waft and fiscal construction,” Jones wrote within the notice. “General, we imagine control’s turnaround technique seems sound, however it is going to take time to spread and isn’t with out possibility in a extremely aggressive drugstore trade.”
Initially Revealed: January 30, 2025 at 4:25 PM CST