RITE AID RETAIL REVENUES CLIMB OVER 9% TO $786 MIL. IN FIRST QUARTER; PHARMACIA AB SALES UP 5% TO $307 MIL. WORLDWIDE AS RESTRUCTURING CONTINUES
Executive Summary
Revenues from Rite Aid's 2,355 retail chain drug units increased 9.4% to $785.7 mil. for the three months ended June 2, the Harrisburg, Penn.-based drug chain reported June 25. Same-store sales grew by 7.4% for the quarter. Rite Aid added 26 new store locations during the three months from March to June and closed 23 others for a net gain of three stores. Fiscal 1991 first quarter income from Rite Aid's retail drug operations rose 6.8% to $23.3 mil., an increase of $1.5 mil. from the year-earlier period. Corporate revenues at Rite Aid were 10.1% higher than in the comparable quarter of FY 1990, at $830.5 mil., with retail drug operations generating nearly 95% of all revenues. First quarter net earnings totaled $25.2 mil., up 3.4%. Pharmacia AB, a health care affiliate of AB Volvo that is being acquired by Kabi parent Procordia, reported a first quarter sales gain of 5.2% to $306.7 mil. worldwide for the first three months of 1990. Net earnings dropped 23.5% to $16.4 mil. The consolidation of Pharmacia and Kabi is progressing ("The Pink Sheet" May 7, T&G-13). On June 20, Jan Ekberg, the president of the new pharmaceutical company resulting from the merger of Kabi, Pharmacia LEO Therapeutics and Pharmacia Ophthalmics, which will be called Kabi-Pharmacia Pharmaceuticals, announced that "over a two-year period," the company intends to cut 1,300-1,500 employees and "slash costs by some" 550-600 mil. Swedish kroner (SEK). Some 500-600 employees affected by the cutbacks will be from outside Sweden. Also as an outcome of the merger process, AB Volvo Chairman Pehr Gyllenhammar was elected as chairman of Procordia AB on June 14. Other board members chosen for the reconfigured company include Volvo's Chief Operating Officer Christer Zetterberg, and former Pharmacia Chairman Bengt Samuelsson.