January 12, 2023 : Walgreens Boots Alliance (WBA.O) said on Thursday it would not hit new deals in the short term after a spate of acquisitions in current years as it focuses on ramping up sales at its more remarkable healthcare industry.
The company, one of the biggest U.S. pharmacies, has been looking to gain a more powerful foothold in the healthcare space at a time when sales at its conventional brick-and-mortar stores are hit by lower directives for COVID-19 vaccines and testing compared to last year’s rise.
“We’re not thinking any M&A type activity in the short term. We’re taking a pause. We must focus on integration activities,” Chief Financial Officer James Kehoe stated in a post-earnings meeting.
Kehoe stated that the company could still make targeted acquisitions, but those would probably be in the hundreds of millions of dollars capacity.
Shares of the enterprise fell over 6% after same-store sales at its pharmacy business skipped expectations in the first quarter and as it declared a quarterly loss versus a year-ago profit due to a $6.5 billion opioid-related litigation cost.