Posted on 06/29/2023 11:09:36 AM PDT by Angelino97
Walgreens is set to shutter 150 stores after slashing its earnings forecast due to lessening demand for Covid-19 tests and vaccine shots.
Shares in the pharmaceutical chain plummeted to $28.64 on Tuesday - their lowest level in more than 11 years - prompting drastic cost-cutting measures from executives.
Last night the firm confirmed all the closures will take place by the end of August 2024. As of midday Thursday its shares were sitting at $28.59, down 30 percent from last year.
Walgreens said it had been hit especially hard by the end of the pandemic which saw demand for its Covid-19 vaccine shots and testing facilities decline rapidly.
It also suggested that consumers were increasingly inflation-weary and less likely to spend.
Walgreens CEO Rosalind Brewer - who was given a $24.7 million signing bonus when she took on the job in February 2021 - told investors in a conference call: 'We have seen changing market trends that have consumers prioritizing value in response to a more uncertain and challenging economic environment.'
The chain reported a 59 percent profits decline to $118 million in the fiscal third quarter, which ended May 31, reports NBC Bay Area...
The news prompted shares in its rivals CVS Health and Riteaid to also fall.
On Thursday CVS health shares were trading at $68.34, down by 26.78 percent in the last year.
Similarly, Riteaid stocks were trading at $1.54, down by 78 percent over the last year.
Investment expert Jeff Jonas, who manages the Gabelli Funds portfolio, told Reuters: 'Very few people are getting either rapid tests or the actual PCR nasal swab tests. That ... probably has some impact on CVS and Rite Aid.'
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Lay down with the devil don’t expect to be alive the next morning!
Those stores were open BEFORE Covid. They couldn’t just scale to what they were?
Big business is nuts.
So their entire business was dependent on Covid?!
They always feared good health would happen and their profits would dry up.
That’s the conspiracy theory posited for diabetes.
To cure it would make a few million.
To keep it going for tens of millions of sufferers will continue to bring in billions of dollars. Strips, testers, Rx’s, doctors’ visits, hospitalizations, side effects, surgery....
This Walgreen’s problem is like the old antiwar joke about war profiteers making a fortune: They’re worried peace could break out.
Their 150 stores will be in high crime areas. This is more about retail theft than the vax.
Just what was it that she axed them??
They bet the farm on a signing bonus and COVID shots and tests? Nothing to do with allowing theft?
Like Walmart and big box stores that ruined the mom and pop stores on Main Street all over the country, then were sorry to find they, too, had to downsize.
Walgreen’s took away a lot of small pharmacies often owned by a family who kept the place going for decades. Then couldn’t compete with the two new Walgreen’s and three CVS places within two miles of them.
RE: Nothing to do with allowing theft?
Crackdowns on theft are racisssss.
They’re closing stores that opened, pre-COVID, because COVID is over?
Their business model depended on a vaccine that didn’t exist?
You read my mind (few pages as it has).
This is a return to normalcy. Sales of the vaccine and tests were an aberration and were exploited. Good for them from a capitalism perspective
If the business and market thinks they were to be on going, then they are idiots.
Stores were built prior to covid so why are they unprofitable now? It isn’t because of COVID - more likely it’s due to the issue all other retailers are having in metro areas - shoplifting.
Just using Covid as an excuse.....again.
Maybe they thought it was a genius way to close the ghetto stores without saying they are closing the ghetto stores?
She axed if her job is still safe now that affirmative action is illegal.
Well, their CEO has mastered corporate jargon (i.e., using many impressive words to avoid saying anything specific):
'We have seen changing market trends that have consumers prioritizing value in response to a more uncertain and challenging economic environment.'
since Walgreens is trying to underground railroad LGBTQ+rstuvwxyz kids to clinics, good. I hope they crash and burn. Thumbs up for the diversity hire, good job! Get a juice box
I’ve seen a number of stories this year stating CVS and RiteAid are having problems. Some predict that they will be shuttering some stores.
This CEO is as bad as Bud Light's marketing director.
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