Rite Aid Posts Solid Q4 Earnings

Rite Aid Corp. (NYSE: RAD) released its fiscal fourth-quarter earnings report before the markets opened on Thursday. The company said it had $0.07 in earnings per share (EPS) on $8.3 billion in revenue. Thomson Reuters consensus estimates had called for $0.06 in EPS on revenue of $8.40 billion. The same period from last year had $0.12 in EPS on $6.85 billion in revenue.

Same-store sales for the quarter fell 0.6% from last year, driven by a 0.8% decrease in pharmacy sales and a 0.4% decrease in front-end sales.

The number of prescriptions filled in same stores barely increased 0.1%. Prescription sales accounted for 68.1% of total drugstore sales, and third party prescription revenue was 97.9% of pharmacy sales.

John Standley, chairman and CEO of Rite Aid, commented:

Our positive fourth-quarter results helped us deliver a successful fiscal year that reflects the tremendous progress we’re making to expand our retail healthcare offering. In the fourth quarter, we generated nearly $40 million of growth in Adjusted EBITDA, including an increase in our Retail Pharmacy Segment and strong results from our new Pharmacy Services Segment. This was one of many key highlights of fiscal 2016, which was a transformational year that saw us acquire EnvisionRx, launch the ground-breaking wellness+ with Plenti program, complete our 2,000th Wellness store and exceed $30 billion in revenues for the first time.

[nativounit]
He continued:

We look forward to building upon this success and to continue delivering a higher level of care in the communities we serve. We thank our dedicated Rite Aid associates for their hard work in executing our strategy and providing an even better retail healthcare experience for our customers. We’re also excited about our opportunity to join forces with Walgreens Boots Alliance to further expand consumer access to health care as part of the first global, pharmacy-led health and wellbeing enterprise.

On the books, cash and cash equivalents totaled $124.5 million, versus the $115.9 million in the same period of last year.

Shares of Rite Aid traded at $8.08 on Thursday. The stock has a consensus analyst price target of $9.00 and a 52-week trading range of $5.88 to $9.47.