Drugstore operator Walgreens quarterly sales miss estimates

Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc, which has offered to buy smaller rival Rite Aid Corp, reported lower-than-expected quarterly sales as it cut back on promotions and offered fewer holiday decoration items.

The drugstore operator, however, raised the lower end of its full-year adjusted profit forecast range.

Walgreens, which offered to buy Rite Aid for $9.4 billion in October, said the deal was progressing as planned.

Walgreens said it now expected an adjusted profit of $4.30-$4.55 per share for the year ending August, compared with $4.25-$4.55 it had forecast earlier.

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The net income attributable to Walgreens rose to $1.11 billion, or $1.01 per share, in the first quarter ended Nov. 30 from $850 million, or 89 cents per share, a year earlier.

Excluding items, the company earned $1.03 per share.

Net sales rose 48.5 percent to $29.03 billion, partly helped by the company's acquisition of Europe's Alliance Boots. Comparable sales at U.S. Walgreens and Duane Reade stores rose 5.8 percent.

Analysts on average had expected a profit of 96 cents per share and net sales of $29.24 billion, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.