Walgreens CEO Tim Wentworth advised CNBC’s Jim Cramer that the company is using its stores and brand to bolster its creating health-care business.
Walgreens has made important investments over the previous few years to broaden past a drugstore chain into a big health-care company. Wentworth acknowledged that the company has been closing stores to be sure that it has the “proper optimized footprint,” however challenged the notion that Walgreens has to absolutely pivot from its stores to pursue its health-care objectives.
“If you take a look at the stores and what goes on … eight million vaccines this 12 months behind the shop already, that is a health-care business, proper?” he stated. “That’s not simply placing tablets in bottles, that is individuals touching individuals — 85,000 of our individuals touching individuals every single day, 10 million people who stroll in our retailer.”
Wentworth emphasised Walgreens’ bodily and private position in communities, calling prospects’ belief within the brand a “leverageable asset” the company can use because it builds its well being companies business.
“When a Walgreens pharmacist calls you and says, ‘Hey, your well being plan would cowl a shot for you, would you want to come into the shop and we can provide it to you?’ You are 4 to 5 occasions extra seemingly to reply to that than if somebody from the insurance coverage company calls you and tells you an identical factor,” Wentworth stated. “That’s invaluable in your Medicare Advantage plan, for instance. That’s one little instance of the way in which that we are able to leverage the platform and the belief to meaningfully assist others which are within the ecosystem to obtain their objectives.”
Wentworth got here out of retirement to take the reigns at Walgreens in October 2023. He beforehand served as CEO of the nation’s largest pharmacy advantages administration company, Express Scripts, which was acquired by Cigna in 2018.
Walgreens has had a rocky few years, scuffling with a number of hurdles together with lowering demand for Covid merchandise, low pharmacy reimbursement charges, competitors from on-line retailers in addition to labor unrest from pharmacy workers. The company managed to beat Wall Street’s earnings expectations final week, however it additionally minimize its dividend practically in half, inflicting its inventory to plummet.
