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Market Update : 
Walgreens Q3 Earnings Call Transcript
Author: 123jump.com Staff
123jump.com
Last Update: 9:55 AM ET June 25 2009


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Gregory D. Wasson

Mark, this is Greg. I think that as I say internally a lot is that certainly healthcare reform, there are certainly some threats and there are opportunities. I think as the administration tries to provide more coverage for the 47 million uninsured, there’s certainly going to be focus on costs and so we’ll be focused on margin pressure and reimbursement pressure. But that’s something that we deal with and have dealt with over the years. I do think the opportunities are great as well. Certainly with coverage for more than 47 million Americans, there will be more prescription volume, just like we saw with Part D. I also think that the administration, one of the key principles is prevention and wellness and an understanding and realization that prescription drugs are a big part of that, so I think we have a great opportunity to play a part, as I said earlier, with access and affordability. This weekend, you saw where-PhRMA made some concessions to help with the doughnut hole in Part D. I think that’s a positive. That will help seniors that have had been challenged during that, when they hit the doughnut hole.

Mark Wiltamuth - Morgan Stanley

Is there any pressure on retail to make any concessions?

Gregory D. Wasson

I think that probably no more than what we’ve experienced. Obviously I think that holding down costs, both on the medical side and prescription side, will be a focus. We’ve had some challenges in a couple of states as is out there, and you’ve probably heard with Medicare, but we think we have solutions and we think rather than rates, there’s ways to improve generic compliance for states and really, really help improve the quality of the benefit they offer.

Mark Wiltamuth - Morgan Stanley

Okay. Thank you.

Operator

And next we’ll go to Eric Bosshard of Cleveland Research.

Eric Bosshard - Cleveland Research

Good morning. Two things, first of all, on the SKU reduction, can you just quantify how far along you are in that process?

Wade D. Miquelon

I’d say probably roughly, you know -- I’m going to just guess the number, two-thirds. I’d say we are more than halfway for sure. As Greg said, we’ve been very aggressive early to clean up the pipes, if you will, just because a) it’s obviously less expensive than waiting and b) I think it’s enabling us to move faster and more quickly on the ultimate ending.

Eric Bosshard - Cleveland Research

So if you had to guess how far along you are in the markdowns necessary to accomplish that --

Wade D. Miquelon

Two-thirds.

Eric Bosshard - Cleveland Research

Okay. And then the second question is as you think about cash flow going forward and you frame this roughly $1.6 billion next year, the depreciation of the business I think is running around $1 billion. With store growth going towards 2%, do we ultimately get to where you are running around $1 billion of CapEx after we get through the incremental investments that the business needs to accomplish, rewire? How do you think about how that behaves going forward?


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