SG&A expenditures in the third quarter were up only 7.4% excluding costs associated with our restructuring versus 10.2% a year ago. SG&A is up slightly from the second quarter 2009 in part because we opened 162 new drugstores this quarter versus 45 in the second quarter and in last year’s third quarter, we opened 122 new drugstores. Looking ahead, I’d like to address two other topics, today’s changing consumer behavior and healthcare reform. Today’s consumer is more value-driven than in the past and this may be a permanent shift. We’re positioning ourselves to be more relevant to the customer through programs like our affordable essentials, CCR, our prescription savings club, and our private brand strategies.

The latest AC Nielsen report for the 12 weeks ending in April shows our private brand dollar sales growing 12.8%. That compares with an increase of 7.6% for all drugstores excluding Walgreens and just a 1.2% increase for all other food, drugstore, and mass merchandise retailers. Our convenient store locations and iconic brand also give us a competitive advantage during times like these. We are in communities where people live and work and entrusted by 5 million shoppers every day for their needs. On the healthcare reform side, things are heating up in Washington. If left unchecked, some estimate healthcare costs could increase from $2.5 trillion a year now to $4 trillion within a decade. Walgreens and the retail pharmacy industry have a role in generating savings in healthcare. Our pharmacists and clinicians at retail and employer clinics are accessible, affordable providers of quality care and it makes good economic sense to include them as part of the solution. As is widely proven, better prescription compliance is key to lowering healthcare costs.

Another example of the role our clinicians can serve, more than 16,000 of our pharmacists will be licensed by this fall to provide flu vaccinations and immunizations. We also have nurse practitioners located about 350 in-store clinics to handle routine family illnesses at a much lower cost than an emergency room visit. These services fit very well with the major themes of healthcare reform access, affordability, and disease prevention and wellness. In addition, we are pioneering new approaches to achieve better healthcare outcomes. In coming quarters, we’ll pilot a Chronic Care Management service in four markets focused initially on type II diabetes. The service will integrate capabilities across all of our platforms, including pharmacies, retail clinics, call centers, and mail service to enable patients to better control their condition.

Bottom line, Walgreens provides affordable, accessible, and quality solutions to both the change in consumer and the demands of healthcare today and will continue to improve and invest in these areas. We know we can do more.

So now Wade will update you on the financial results for the quarter. Wade.

Wade D. Miquelon – Chief Financial officer

Thank you, Greg. We feel very good about our results in a very challenging environment. In the quarter, net sales increased 8% while total comparable sales rose 2.8%. Prescription sales rose 8.2% and represent 65.6% of sales for the quarter. Prescription sales in comparable stores rose a solid 3.8%. The number of prescriptions filled in comparable stores increased 4.9%. That includes a benefit of 1.6 percentage points for more patients filling 90-day scripts versus 30-day scripts. Now, recall that when we reported May sales we announced that we are now following a more typical industry convention by treating one 90-day prescription as three 30-day scripts for both comparable scripts and total scripts, and this truly reflects better prescription usage. Despite rising unemployment, our prescription trend is stabilizing. We filled 187 million prescriptions during the quarter and our U.S. retail scripts increased 8.3% over last year’s third quarter. That includes an impact of 1.4 percentage points from patients filling 90-day scripts rather than 30-day scripts.

We exceeded by 5.7 percentage points the industry wide growth rate excluding Walgreens as reported by IMS. Net earnings in the third quarter were $522 million, or a decline of 8.8% from last year’s quarter. However, this year included a $99 million pretax impact from costs associated with rewiring for growth, or $0.06 per share diluted. Offsetting that was about $0.06 per share diluted benefit from rewire. In addition, the quarter included negative impacts of negative $0.01 per share diluted for the LIFO reserve versus year ago and a negative $0.02 per share diluted for interest expense above the prior year.

Gross profit in the third quarter was $4.5 million, a 5% increase versus the year-ago quarter. Gross margin was down 80 basis points in the quarter compared with prior year. Negatively impacting margins were front-end product mix, including LIFO, non-retail businesses, and CCR markdowns. Partially offsetting the overall margin decline was an increase in pharmacy margins resulting from generic drug sales. Our focus on cost control continued in the third quarter as we recorded an increase in SG&A dollars of 8.4%, and just 7.4% if you take out the cost for rewiring for growth. On a two-year stack basis, SG&A dollar growth for the third quarter declined from 24.9% to 17.6%, primarily due to store salary and expense control. And as Greg showed you, slowing new store openings will reduce SG&A growth, as will the significant cost benefits resulting from rewiring for growth. This chart summarizes the costs and savings for restructuring related charges through to the first three quarters of 2009, with a net cost to date of about $0.04. As we mentioned in our last call, because we accelerated some restructuring costs this year, we expect to be a few cents per share net negative.

Now, let’s look at other highlights from our income statement. The LIFO provision was $32 million versus $16 million in the third quarter of 2008. We lowered our LIFO provision in the quarter from 2.25% to 2% due to lower-than-anticipated inflation, and you’ll recall that last year’s LIFO provision was roughly 1.25%. Next are the $99 million in restructuring related costs, highlighted by $65 million in SKU discontinuation, $28 million in consulting and other costs, and about $6 million in costs associated with workforce reductions. Net interest expense was $25 million compared with $2 million last year due to the issuance of $2.3 billion in long-term debt, and the effective tax rate was 36.4% compared with a rate of 37.3% in the year-ago period.

Now here you can see the components of working capital that we can most directly impact, accounts receivable, inventory, and accounts payable. Some of these as a percent to sales have improved by nearly 11% in the quarter, primarily due to inventory improvement. Total inventories were down $173 million, or 2.4% against total sales growth of 8% and a total drugstore growth of 9.7%. Over the last four quarters, FIFO total inventory growth has ranged from plus 10% to flat in the most recent quarter. Adjusting for store growth, FIFO total inventories on a per store basis fell 9% in the most recent quarter. As you can see, we have made significant progress but of course we can always do more.

Our net cash position at the end of the quarter was $52 million, with cash and cash equivalents of $2.4 billion and long-term debt of $2.35 billion. This cash position compares favorably with a net debt of $785 million at the end of the second quarter and a net debt of over $1.5 billion at the end of the first quarter. Our financial strength and liquidity are in very good shape and our balance sheet should only strengthen as we continue to slow our store growth and improve inventory and drive cost savings over the next few years. For the first three quarters of the fiscal year, we invested $1.5 billion on additions to property, plant and equipment versus $1.7 billion last year, mostly for the addition of new stores. We estimate capital spending for the full year to come in at about $1.8 billion, or slightly higher, about $400 million less than fiscal year 2008.

For fiscal year 2010, slowing store growth will result in lower CapEx for new stores but we will increase our investments for systems and other improvements in existing stores. In total, we anticipate next year’s capital expenditure to be approximately $1.6 billion and we will be vetting the final number in the coming months.

Let me say a little bit more about our cash flow performance. These graphs demonstrate the improvements in the cash that we have generated from store operations and inventory control. Our cash flow from operations in the quarter increased to $1.5 billion from $985 million a year ago, a 54% increase. Meanwhile, free cash flow for the quarter stood at almost $1.1 billion compared with $375 million a year ago, or nearly a three-fold increase. So I hope you can see the efforts we are making on cash flows are truly bearing fruit. Looking forward, I am extremely optimistic about our future. We have many opportunities, such as leveraging the best retail network in America. Driving CCR is only the beginning of our journey towards customer centricity and realizing the benefits of rewiring for growth.

Like any company, we have tailwinds and headwinds. Reimbursement pressure and economic uncertainty will undoubtedly provide challenges but winning companies can turn these challenges into opportunities, and we will. For example, for healthcare payers, accessibility, cost efficiency, and better outcomes are the order of the day and we are well-positioned to step up and help. On the consumer side, growing companies with winning strategies and strong balance sheets can gain loyal customers in unprecedented ways during down economies and we intend to be one of those companies.

So I’ll just close by saying we are committed to returning to double-digit earnings growth and improving ROIC as part of our overall plan to create long-term shareholder value, and I hope that I have conveyed this message to you today.

And now I will turn the call back over to Rick.

Rick J. Hans

Cecilia, that concludes our prepared remarks. We are now ready to take questions.

Question-and-Answer Session