Nottingham, 2014-5-16 — /EPR Retail News/ — “On track to become the world leader in both retail pharmacy and pharmaceutical wholesaling”
Highlights:
Revenue
- reported: up 4.3% to £23.4 billion
- including share of associates and joint ventures: up 4.3% to £25.7 billion
Trading profit
- reported: up 0.4% to £1,270 million
- including share of associates and joint ventures: up 7.7% to £1,382 million
Profit attributable to equity shareholders
- underlying: up 18.5% to £840 million
- statutory: up 32.4% to £936 million
Cash flow and net borrowings
- cash generated from operations: £1,544 million
- net borrowings down £842 million to £5,051 million
Stefano Pessina, Executive Chairman, commented:
“I am pleased to report that Alliance Boots has continued to deliver strong earnings growth, in a year where the markets in which we operate were significantly more challenging than I have experienced for a very long time.
“These results have been achieved during a period when considerable management time and other key resources have been dedicated to our Walgreens partnership. This has covered many areas, including our joint synergy programme, forward planning and preparation for our anticipated full merger, together with the burden of complex reporting requirements.
“Our strategy of creating the first global pharmacy-led health and wellbeing enterprise in partnership with Walgreens is, I believe, widely recognised as being the right way forward. This is evidenced by the realignment of our industry that is starting to quickly take place, as competitors seek to follow our lead.
“Delivering shareholder value year after year requires a strong and dedicated management team, with the leadership skills to execute strategy, while at the same time managing businesses in challenging and changing trading environments. While the composition of our profits can vary year by year, our consistently good performance over a sustained period of time is due to our ability to adapt to meet new challenges in a financially disciplined way, as so clearly demonstrated in the year just ended.
“Being global is increasingly important in many business sectors including our own. The steps taken by the Group over the last two years, most notably our transformational partnership with Walgreens, our joint agreement with AmerisourceBergen, our geographical expansion in Latin America and Asia and all the work we have done to develop our brands are enabling the Group to continue on its path to becoming the clear world leader in both retail pharmacy and pharmaceutical wholesaling.
“Since Alliance Boots was formed eight years ago, we have made huge progress developing our businesses across the globe, while at the same time creating substantial value for first our public and then our private shareholders. As I have said on many occasions, I truly believe that we have the brands, intellectual capital and, most importantly, the vision and management expertise to continue to create value for stakeholders across the world in the coming years.”
Reconciliations of trading profit to profit from operations before associates and joint ventures, and underlying profit to profit for the year, are set out in the financial review section of this announcement.
Revenue, EBITDA and trading profit including share of associates and joint ventures and all underlying measures exclude the distributed associate.
A glossary of key terms is provided at the end of this announcement.
Further information is contained within the Group’s Annual Report 2013/14 which is published on our website (www.allianceboots.com). In addition, the Group’s Corporate Social Responsibility Report 2013/14 will be published on our website in September 2014.
A press conference will be held on 15 May 2014 at 11.30 am (BST) which will be webcast simultaneously on www.allianceboots.com and available to view thereafter.
For further information, please contact:
Media Relations:
Yves Romestan/Laura Vergani/Katie Johnson, Alliance Boots: +44 (0)207 980 8585
James Murgatroyd/Katie Lang, RLM Finsbury: +44 (0)207 251 3801
Investor Relations:
Gerald Gradwell, Alliance Boots: +44 (0)207 980 8527 (UK) / +1 646-688-1336 (US)
Full press release as PDF – 15 May 2014