Walgreens Boots Alliance, Inc. (WBA) shares are up 57c to $88.25 in pre-market trading Thursday after the company reported its second quarter earnings results.
For the quarter ended Feb. 28, the drug store chain reported non-GAAP earnings of $1.18 per share on revenues of $26.57 billion, up 35.5% from a year ago. Analysts were expecting EPS of $0.95 on revenues of $27.79 billion. Net earnings more than doubled to $2.04 billion, or $1.96 a share, from $716 million, or $0.74 a share, in the same period a year ago. Same-store sales climbed 6.9%, boosted by a 9.7% jump in pharmacy sales, compared with Street consensus of 5.3% and 7.2%, respectively.
Executive Vice Chairman and Acting CEO Stefano Pessina said, “This quarter marked a solid start for our new company, and I remain as optimistic as ever about our long-term future.”
For the full-year 2015, WBA provided EPS guidance of $3.45 – $3.65 versus consensus of $3.61 per share.
On valuation measures, Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc. shares, which currently have an average 3-month trading volume of 6.08 million shares, trade at a trailing-12 P/E of 41.20, a forward P/E of 19.84 and a P/E to growth ratio of 1.76. The median Wall Street price target on the name is $85.00 with a high target of $91.00. Currently ticker boasts 8 ‘Buy’ endorsements, compared to 13 ’Holds’ and no ‘Sell’.
Profitability-wise, WBA has a t-12 profit and operating margin of 2.64% and 5.16%, respectively. The $95.13 billion market cap company reported $3 billion in cash vs. $16 billion in debt in its most recent quarter.
WBA currently prints a one year return of 37.32% and a year-to-date return of around 15.50%.
Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc. operates a network of drugstores in the United States. The company was founded in 1901 and is based in Deerfield, Illinois.
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