Walgreen (NYSE:WAG) announced on Friday that it earned $353 million during its fiscal fourth quarter, down 55% compared to $792 million in the same period last year. Adjusted EPS was 63 cents, beating Wall Street, which had anticipated 55 cents a share, Bloomberg noted.
For the quarter, revenue declined to $17.1 billion, down 5% from $18 billion last year.
Company officials said that the quarter’s earnings were hit by charges relating to its purchase of a 45% stake in Swiss pharmacy chain Alliance Boots, its first overseas acquisition, and higher inventory costs.
The Alliance Boots deal resulted in a charge of 9 cents per share against earnings, while inventory costs amounted to charge of 10 cents per share.
For fiscal 2012, Walgreen reported income of $2.13 billion and revenue of $71.63 billion.
Sales during the quarter continued to feel the impact of the end of its relationship with Express Scripts (NASDAQ:ESRX). The loss of Express Scripts caused some customers to migrate to rivals, including CVS Caremark (NYSE:CVS) and Rite Aid (NYSE:RAD).
However, the two company’s have since re-established their business relationship, which commenced again this month.
Shares of Walgreen slipped more than 1% in Friday morning trading.
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