Rite Aid Posts Mixed Q2 Results

Rite Aid Corporation

reported mixed results for the second quarter. While its EPS came in line, revenues missed the estimates. In the preceding four quarters, its EPS failed to meet expectations on two quarters and met with predictions in the other two quarters. The drug retailer earned a profit of $14.77 million, or $0.01 a share, down from $21.47 million, or $0.02 a share, in the previous year quarter. On an adjusted basis, it would have earned $35.5 million or $0.03 a share, which is in line with the Street analysts' predictions. Rite Aid sales rose 4.8 percent from $7.7 billion to $8.0 billion, which was below the analysts' estimates of $8.17 billion. Its same store sales dropped 2.5 percent consisting of a 3.6 percent fall in pharmacy sales, which were partly compensated by a 0.1 percent growth in front-end sales. The company's chairman and CEO, John Standley, commented, "Heading forward, we will remain focused on operating our business as efficiently as possible while pursuing key growth opportunities such as our flu immunization campaign and converting additional stores to the Wellness format, which continue to perform well and now represent nearly half of our chain." Following the news, the stock traded up by $0.04, or 0.49 percent, to $8.14 in the pre-market trading on Thursday.