Walgreens Boots Alliance (WBA) is set to report first quarter fiscal earnings results for 2025 on Friday that are largely anticipated to be in line with expectations.
First quarter revenue is estimated to be $37.3 billion, while earnings per share is estimated to be $0.38, according to Bloomberg.
Investors are eager to hear updates about potential buyout talks with Sycamore Partners, which have been ongoing since December.
JPMorgan analyst Lisa Gill wrote in a note to investors on Monday that there is unlikely to be an update on Friday and that she is instead more focused on the cost-savings strategy the company has implemented since CEO Tim Wentworth took over in 2023.
At close: January 8 at 4:00:01 PM EST
“We expect that there will be questions on the earnings call, but at this juncture we are skeptical that management will provide much in the way of commentary. As a result, we believe much more of the strategic focus that management will describe will be on store closures and cost savings programs,” Gill wrote.
Other areas to watch are the company’s prescription volume, further store closures, and VillageMD’s performance. Front-of-store sales, an area that has been weak for the industry for years, are expected to continue to weigh on the company’s earnings in the new year.
“Front-end weakness is not a new trend for WBA and recent quarters have seen promotional activities deployed by WBA, and our review of Bloomberg card data indicates that negative [year-over-year] y/y declines persisted through F1Q25, with y/y declines worse than F4Q24. Given the front-end accretion to retail pharmacy gross margins, we expect that gross margins will remain soft as front-end growth does not improve,” Gill wrote.
Anjalee Khemlani is the senior health reporter at Yahoo Finance, covering all things pharma, insurance, care services, digital health, PBMs, and health policy and politics. That includes GLP-1s, of course. Follow Anjalee on social media platforms X (Twitter), LinkedIn Bluesky @AnjKhem.