walgreens boots alliance Sold more shares in a pharmaceutical sales company cenkora Formerly Amersbergenthe $674 million proceeds will be used for “debt repayment and general corporate purposes.”
The stock sale, which comes less than a month after former Express Scripts CEO Tim Wentworth became Walgreens’ chief executive, means Walgreens remains a drug distributor. Although it is the largest shareholder in the drugstore chain Sencora, its stake in the drugstore chain will drop to 15%.
“This transaction is another decisive action to further simplify the company’s portfolio while improving cash management.” Walgreens said in a statement Friday.
Walgreens is hiring former CEO Roz Brewer to raise money for other priorities, including a multibillion-dollar bet on physician-staffed primary care clinics attached to drugstores. Under him, the company has begun reducing its stake in distributors and other businesses over the past two years.
In May, Walgreens sold its stake in Sencora, then known as AmerisourceBergen, for $694 million in proceeds. The deal follows a resale of the distributor’s stake in December last year for proceeds of $1 billion, reducing the company’s stake to less than 20%.
The divestiture strategy continues as Wentworth builds a new management team. Walgreens earlier this month The company continued its downsizing at its headquarters this week, naming Neil Sample as its new executive vice president and chief information officer, even as it cut more than 260 corporate jobs.
Mr. Sample’s experience also includes stints as chief information officer at Northwestern Mutual and Express Scripts, where he served as chief operating officer and CIO while Mr. Wentworth was CEO of the pharmacy benefits manager. Mr. Wentworth and Mr. Sample led Express Scripts through its $54 billion acquisition by health insurance giant Cigna in 2018.
Walgreens has spent billions of dollars expanding its primary care business, using a combination of equity and debt to do so. Most notably, Walgreens is investing in Village MD, which last year announced plans to acquire Summit Health for $8.9 billion to expand physician-staffed clinics nationwide. Announced. The deal included investments from Walgreens, which already owns about half of VillageMD, and Cigna’s medical services business Evernorth.
Walgreens and rivals CVS Health, Walmart and Amazon are expanding further into providing health care in drugstores and other retail stores.
follow me twitter or linkedin. check out my website and other works here.
