CVS Caremark Corporation. (CVS)
Q3 2009 Conference Call
November 05, 2009 8:30 a.m. ET

Executives

Nancy Christal - Senior Vice President, Investor Relation
Thomas M. Ryan - Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer
David B. Rickard - Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Analysts

Thomas Gallucci - Lazard Capital
Eric Bosshard - Cleveland Research
Lisa Gill - JPMorgan
Robert Maloney - BAS-ML
John Heinbockel - Goldman Sachs
Edward Kelly - Credit Suisse
Ann Hynes - FTN Equity
Scott Mushkin - Jefferies
Matthew Perry - Wells Fargo
Meredith Adler - Barclays
Helene Wolk - Sanford Bernstein
Neil Currie - UBS

Presentations

Operator

At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the CVS Caremark Corporation Third Quarter 2009 Earnings Conference call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers’ remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, then please press star then the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, press the pound key.

Thank you. I would now like to turn the call over to Nancy Christal, Senior Vice President, Investor Relations. Ms. Christal, you may begin the conference.

Nancy Christal - Senior Vice President, Investor Relations

Thanks Regina. Good morning, everyone and thanks for joining us today for our third quarter earnings call. I’m here with Tom Ryan, Chairman, President and CEO of CVS Caremark who’ll provide a business update and Dave Rickard, Executive Vice President and CFO, who will provide a financial review and guidance.

During the Q&A that follows, we ask that you limit yourself to one or two questions including follow-ups, so that we can get to as many analysts and investors as possible. Please note that we expect to file our 10-Q by end of the day today and it will be available through our website at cvscaremark.com/investors.

This morning, we will discuss some non-GAAP financial measures in talking about our company’s performance, mainly free cash flow, EBITDA and adjusted EPS. In accordance with SEC regulations, you can find the definitions of the non-GAAP items, I just mentioned as well as the reconciliations to comparable GAAP measures on the Investor Relations portion of our website at cvscaremark/investors.com.

As always, today’s call is being simulcast on our IR website. It will also be archived there for a one-month period, following the call to make it easy for all investors to access it.

Now, before we continue our attorneys have asked me to read the Safe Harbor statement. During this presentation, we will make certain forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties, that could cause actual results to differ materially.

Accordingly, for these forward-looking statements, we claim the protection of the Safe Harbor for forward-looking statements, contained in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. We strongly recommend you become familiar with the specific risks and uncertainties that are described in the risk factors section of our most recently filed annual report on Form 10-K and that you review the section entitled cautionary statement concerning forward-looking statements in our most recently filed quarterly report on Form 10-Q.

And now I will turn this over to our CEO, Tom Ryan.

Thomas M. Ryan - Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer

Thanks, Nancy and good morning, everyone. We reported another excellent quarter this morning. And I’m certainly pleased with our results across the company, especially given the economic climate, we’re in.

Let me give a few highlights for the quarter. Total revenues increased 18%. Our PBM revenues increased 23%, while retail revenues were up 18%. Retail comps up 5.7%. And I should point out without any benefit from flu shots.