Rosalind Brewer, CEO of Walgreens Boots Alliance
Valerie Plesch/Bloomberg
Walgreens Boots Alliance
stock has slumped this year and is trading near a multiyear low, but the drugstore chain’s CEO, Rosalind Brewer, just bought shares on the open market.
Walgreens stock (ticker: WBA) has slid 4% year to date, following a 28% drop in 2022. The company has been hurt by continuing staff shortages that have prevented many Walgreens locations from operating at full regular pharmacy hours. The company found itself mired in controversy in March when Walgreens said it wouldn’t dispense the abortion pill in states where abortion is illegal and in several states where it is currently legal. “It was clear to me that, from a strategic standpoint, traditional retail plus the pharmacy business is a very mature business, and at some point we’re going to have to have another way to grow revenue,” Brewer told The Wall Street Journal in February. At the time, she was shifting the company’s focus to medical clinics.
Brewer paid $339,510 on March 29 for 10,000 Walgreens shares, an average price of $33.95 each. Brewer now owns 369,945 shares, including some that underlie restricted stock units, according to a form she filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Most of the shares Brewer owns are from grants of restricted stock units.
Walgreens didn’t respond to a request to make Brewer available for comment. This is her first open-market purchase of stock since she became CEO in March 2021. Previous to that, Brewer most recently was chief operating officer and group president of
Starbucks
(SBUX).
Inside Scoop is a regular Barron’s feature covering stock transactions by corporate executives and board members—so-called insiders—as well as large shareholders, politicians, and other prominent figures. Due to their insider status, these investors are required to disclose stock trades with the Securities and Exchange Commission or other regulatory groups.
Write to Ed Lin at [email protected] and follow @BarronsEdLin.
