Walgreens Boots Alliance, Inc. (WBA) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

For the period ending February 28, 2022

March 28, 2023 8:30 a.m. ET

Prepared Remarks

Questions and Answers

Call Participants

Prepared Remarks:

Operator

Good morning. My name is Rob, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Walgreens Boots Alliance Second Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call.Thank you.

Tiffany Kanaga, Vice President of Global Investor Relations, you may begin your conference.

Tiffany Kanaga - VP of Global IR

Good morning. Thank you for joining us for the Walgreens Boots Alliance earnings call for the second quarter of fiscal year 2023. I'm Tiffany Kanaga, Vice President of Global Investor Relations. Joining me on today's call are Roz Brewer, our Chief Executive Officer; and James Kehoe, our Chief Financial Officer. Rick Gates, Senior Vice President and Chief Pharmacy Officer at Walgreens; and John Driscoll, President of U.S. Healthcare, will participate in Q&A.

Today's call will be approximately one hour in length, including Q&A. Let me note that all references to the COVID-19 headwind include U.S. vaccines, drive-through tests and OTC tests. As always, during the conference call, we anticipate making projections and forward-looking statements based on our current expectations. Our actual results could differ materially due to a number of factors, including those listed on Slide 2 and those outlined in our latest forms 10-K and 10-Q filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. We undertake no obligation to publicly update any forward-looking statement after this presentation, whether as a result of new information, future events, changes in assumptions or otherwise.

You can find our press release and the slides referenced on this call in the Investors section of the Walgreens Boots Alliance website. The slides in the press release also contain further information about the non-GAAP financial measures that we will discuss during this call.

I'll now turn the call over to Roz.

Rosalind Brewer - CEO

Thanks, Tiffany, and good morning, everyone. WBA has delivered a solid second quarter. Overall, results were in line with our expectations as the slow start earlier in the quarter was offset by strong acceleration in February. The overall decline in adjusted EPS was against growth of 26.5% last year and again reflects the anticipated headwind from lower COVID demand and our investments in labor and the U.S. Healthcare segment. This is our final quarter of lapping last year's peak COVID contributions, and we are looking forward to accelerated growth ahead.