Rite Aid Corp (RAD) 2008 Q3 法說會逐字稿

Good morning. My name is April and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Rite Aid third quarter fiscal year 2008 conference call.

All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers' remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. (OPERATOR INSTRUCTIONS) Thank you.

I would now like to turn the call over to Mr. Twomey, CFO for Rite Aid Corporation. Please go ahead.

Thank you, April. Good morning, everyone. We welcome you to our third quarter conference call.

Mary Sammons, our Chairman, President and CEO, Jim Mastrian, Special Advisor on Corporate Strategy, Rob Easley, our Chief Operating Officer, and Pierre Legault, our Chief Administrative Officer, are also on the call with me.

Our agenda for today's call will be as follows: Mary will give an overview of our third quarter and a brief update on our Brooks Eckerd's integration. I will review the third quarter financial results and then we'll take questions.

Before we start, I'd like to remind you that today's conference call includes certain forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are made in the context of certain risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ.

Also, we will be using a non-GAAP financial measure. The risks, uncertainties and definition of the non-GAAP financial measure, along with a reconciliation to the GAAP measure, are described in more detail in our SEC filings.

With that in mind, let's get started. Mary?

Thanks, Kevin. Good morning, everyone, and thanks for joining us today.

As you can see from our press release, we increased adjusted EBITDA significantly in dollars during the third quarter because of the added revenues from the Brooks Eckerd stores, the increase in sales in core Rite Aid, gross margin rate improvement, and good cost control by our team. But even though our front-end sales picked up in November, it wasn't soon enough to improve third quarter results.

As expected, we reported a net loss for the quarter, which was partially impacted by expenses related to the acquisition and integration costs. We continue to be on track to have all of the acquired stores converted and integrated into Rite Aid by fall of next year.

Third quarter total revenues increased by 51%, with most of the increase coming from the addition of the Brooks and Eckerd stores. Negative same-store sales trends continued in the acquired stores, as our decision not to anniversary hot price deals and below cost promotions hurt sales but improved margin.

Getting the majority of our full merchandise mix into all of the acquired stores by the end of the quarter has enabled us to strengthen our promotions and advertise more effectively in our common circular. We expect this and the grand opening marketing for the fully converted stores that began in mid-November to improve results.

Same-store sales, which do not include Brooks Eckerd, increased 0.7% during the third quarter. Pharmacy same-store sales increased 1.2% posting steady gains throughout the quarter as we filled more prescriptions despite the slow start to the flu season.

Pharmacy gross profit was strong with gross profit per script again increasing at both core Rite Aid and Brooks Eckerd stores because of product cost savings, increased generics and improved shrink.

We filled more Medicare prescriptions in the quarter, but they continue to impact same-store sales as we cycled higher numbers from the first year of the program. Annual enrollment started November 15th for the 2 million seniors who become eligible for Part D each year and our marketing programs with partners Aetna, United Healthcare and WellPoint have been very effective.

This year we added a special Web site that allows seniors to get a complete list of Part D plan options in their local area and compare prescription prices. Our senior loyalty program, Living More, also gives us a competitive edge as we market to those newly eligible for Part D, while attracting younger seniors to Rite Aid at the same time.

In the third quarter the number of Living More members surpasses 3 million and about 25% of them are under age 65. Our health condition marketing programs on pain management and diabetes, tactical marketing programs targeted to specific markets and intensified efforts on patient compliance by both telephone and at point of sale, also contributed to our gains in pharmacy sales.

Our increased focus on patient compliance is particularly important to the health and wellness of our patients since studies show that of 100 prescriptions written, 30 to 50% are never filled, only about one fourth are taken properly, and fewer than 20% are refilled as recommended by the physician. We expect the Brooks Eckerd courtesy refill program that we expanded to all Rite Aid stores during the quarter to have a positive impact on compliance and script growth, as well as customer satisfaction.

Our file buys also attracted new customers to Rite Aid during the quarter. We're well ahead in both deals and number of scripts over last year and expect to beat our target for the year while at the same time delivering a record level retention rate.

New generics negatively impacted same-store sales by 431 basis points this quarter as compared to a 259 basis point increase in the same period last year. Generic penetration reached a new high for core Rite Aid and for the industry with 66.3% of all the prescriptions we dispensed generic making this the 26th consecutive quarter we have increased this number.

The rate for the total company came in at a solid 64.2%, which we expect to grow to more than 66% with our continued emphasis on generics in the acquired stores. While payors continue to look for ways to save money, we did not experience any significant unexpected generic reimbursement changes.

During the quarter we continued to review multiple partnership opportunities to expand our in-store clinic offerings. We also announced plans for five more in-store clinics in Rite Aid stores in Southern California operated by Lindora, which combines traditional in-store clinic healthcare services with medically supervised weight loss programs.

While front-end sales declined the first two months of the quarter, we reversed that trend in November as we raised our promotional activities back to a normal level and additional marketing and operational initiatives started to gain traction. Having our full merchandise mix in all of our stores so we can advertise more effectively in our weekly circular impacts not only Brooks Eckerd, but all of the stores in the chain.

Core drug store had good momentum, particularly with OTC and health and beauty. Cosmetics and consumables strengthened substantially by the end of the quarter.

Once again, our exclusive GNC store within a store performed better than the overall vitamin category. We added 60 more during the quarter, bringing our total of GNC departments to almost 1400.

Photo continued to be negative, but a more positive contributor to margins. We started to see stronger sales in this category in recent weeks as the result of changes in our photo marketing program.

Core Rite Aid had solid private brand sales with year-to-date penetration running at 13%. Private brand penetration of the former Brooks Eckerd stores, which was less than 9% when we acquired them, also improved, helping their front-end margin beat plan. We expect it to continue to increase now that those stores carry our full private brand assortment, which is heavily promoted in our weekly circulars.

During the quarter we made headway on our other critical priorities. Customer satisfaction scores continued to improve in the front-end during the quarter, while holding steady in the pharmacy.

Our new store development program remains on track as we expect to open 123 new stores, 57 new and 66 relocations. We're also on target to complete 155 remodels this year, with 60 of them related to combining acquired stores in close proximity to core Rite Aid stores.

We're already starting to see additional savings from our spend efficiency program, which should have a significant impact on our expense control in the next fiscal year. This involves non-retail purchasing across the chain to make sure we're getting the best prices possible and operating efficiently.

We also continue to make good progress on our number one priority, the Brooks Eckerd integration. As of today, 565 stores have undergone systems conversion and more than 150 have also completed a minor remodel. Per our plan, we've stopped activity during this busy holiday season, but will ramp up again starting the first week in January.

The conversions are going as smoothly as expected and we've made some modifications along the way to make sure we limit disruption to stores and customers as much as possible. That includes moving to a geography-based schedule next month, converting stores district by district. This gives us greater flexibility in staffing and supervision.

As I said earlier in my remarks, we completed new front-end planograms for nearly all categories in all of the acquired stores just before Thanksgiving and cleared out the majority of non go forward merchandise. This has improved the appearance of the stores and made it easier for our customers to shop.

We're getting great response to the expanded offerings and as I visit the stores, I'm pleased to see the strong core drug store assortment and best-in-class seasonal offerings that Rite Aid is known for.

We've also executed 71[pours] to date where the prescription files of a former Brooks or Eckerd store is moved to a nearby Rite Aid store. And seven reverse [pours] where the prescription files of a Rite Aid store is moved to a nearby Brooks or Eckerd store.

We completed most of these near the end of the third quarter as a [pour] generally requires a remodel that takes more time to make sure the remaining store can handle the added business.

Our wind-down of the Brooks Eckerd headquarters continues as scheduled. Remaining associates are now in one office building versus three, and we are reviewing bids from several interested parties on the recently completed new Warwick headquarters building.

Although no one likes the disruption when a store team has to learn a new system or a store is torn up for two weeks in a minor remodel, we're very excited about what we're seeing in the early stages of the integration. Both associates and customers are excited about the changes at the stores and we're looking forward to having all stores completed next year.

As we look forward to the remainder of our fiscal year, like the rest of the industry, we continue to be challenged by a weaker cough, cold and flu season than last year, a more cautious consumer, and in the last weeks, whether in the Midwest and Northeast. Based on these trends, we are lowering sales and adjusted EBITDA guidance for this fiscal year.

We do expect that our strong holiday offerings and creative promotions, like our holiday awards program, our health condition marketing program and our historically successful private brand and President sales in the fourth quarter will attract more than our fair share of customers.

We're supporting these initiatives with aggressive marketing and advertising programs for both front-end and pharmacy. Remember that Rite Aid is not only a quarter-by-quarter story, but a company with a long-term strategy and vision that we believe will make us very successful in the future.

While we will continue to feel the temporary impact of one of the biggest integration efforts in our industry's history, when we're through, we expect Rite Aid will be a formidable drug store company with tremendous capacity to create shareholder value.

I'll now turn it over to Kevin.

Thanks, Mary.

Let's talk through the operating statement, which was attached to the press release. Revenues for this quarter were $6.52 billion compared to $4.32 billion last year. That was an increase of $2.2 billion, or 51.0%.

The increase was driven primarily by the Brooks Eckerd acquisition. There was also a positive contribution from the 0.7% increase in same-store sales of core Rite Aid. The acquired Brooks Eckerd stores are not included in the same-store sales calculation, but will be included starting in June 2008.

We did close or sell 64 stores late in the quarter. 53 were Brooks Eckerd stores and 11 were Rite Aid stores. Almost all of the closed stores were related to combining stores in close proximity to one another.

Pharmacy same-store sales, which excludes the Brooks Eckerd stores, increased 1.2%, which was driven primarily by a 0.2% increase in the number of prescriptions. As Mary said, new generics had a negative 431 basis points impact on pharmacy same-store sales during the quarter, but of course, that's got a positive impact on gross margin rate.

The Brooks Eckerd stores pharmacy sales trends were negative during the quarter. They were negative when we closed on the acquisition.

Our mix of generic prescriptions, as Mary described, continued to increase. During the third quarter all generic prescriptions were 64.2% of total prescriptions, which was over 360 basis points higher than last year's third quarter. We expect this trend to continue to.

We saw a weak start to the cough, cold and flu season and we continued to anniversary the inception of the Medicare Part D program. Our growth initiative, such as our focus on customer satisfaction, prescription file buys, marketing to Medicare patients, our senior loyalty program, and the new and relocated store program continued to produce results. We expect prescriptions to continue to grow.

For reference purposes, note that Medicare Part D sales represented approximately 16.4% of pharmacy sales. Medicaid sales represented approximately 9.3% of pharmacy sales.

Let's go to front-end. Front-end same-store sales decreased 0.4%, but the last month of the quarter, as Mary mentioned, turned positive. As the quarter progressed, we achieved more balance between sales growth and gross profit growth.

Our sales consisted of a lower percent of promotion sales in this year's third quarter when compared to last year's third quarter. We experienced weakness in a couple of categories, some of it due to competition, but some of it was also due to our decision to protect gross profit and give up some sales. The photo category continued to be a negative contributor.

The Brooks Eckerd stores' front-end sales were negative during the quarter. This was caused by discontinuing the old promotion program that Mary mentioned, because we do not believe in chasing unsustainable sales growth or unprofitable sales growth.

Also, we discontinued a lot of inventory and retrofitted the planograms during the quarter in the stores with the majority of the planograms completed in mid-October and in November. We continue to believe completing the Brooks Eckerd's integration, our initiatives for improving customer satisfaction and our new and relocated store program, along with our consistent promotion program with a focus on health conditions, senior citizens, and core categories, will grow our front-end sales.

Gross profit was $1.75 billion, or 26.84% of revenues for this quarter versus $1.15 billion, or 26.71% of revenues for last year. Gross profit dollars increased due to the sales increase and an improvement in our gross margin rate.

The current quarter included a non-cash LIFO charge of $16.0 million versus $8.9 million in last year's quarter. The LIFO charge increase is due primarily to the effect of higher inventory related to the acquisition and product inflation.

Excluding LIFO, this quarter's gross margin rate was 27.08% of revenues compared to 26.92% of revenue last year, an increase of 16 basis points. The 16 basis points increase in consolidated FIFO gross margin rate was due to an increase in both the gross margin rate for front-end and pharmacy. The gross margin rate improvement for both categories was partially offset by an increase in distribution expenses.

Pharmacy gross margin rate was 41 basis points better. Positively impacting pharmacy gross margin rate were first, the increase in the generic sales mix that we've described. The increase came from not only new generics, but also an increase in the dispensing of older generics.

And second, our gross margin rate improvement came from the generic purchasing synergies related to the acquisition that lowered the cost of product.

Offsetting some of these positive factors were, first, our Medicare Part D business is a larger part of pharmacy sales. It was approximately 16.4% for the current quarter compared to 14% last year, and we all know there's less gross profit per script on the Medicare Part D business than other business.

Second, we continue to experience overall reimbursement rate pressures, and third, three significant generics were either withdrawn or gross profit was significantly reduced for various reasons.

The front-end gross margin rate was 122 basis points better. The improvement was due primarily to four factors: One, strong vendor support for our promotion programs, two, our ability to change retail prices to pass on cost increases, three, a reduction in the mix of promotion sales, and four, better contribution from the photo category.

Selling, general and administrative expenses for the quarter increased as a percent of revenues by 167 basis points compared to the prior year. 82 basis points of that increase was due to the $53.3 million of acquisition-related integration expenses in the current quarter, or as the prior year's quarter only had $687,000.

This year's quarter also had a 52 basis point increase in occupancy expense because of our new and relocated store openings, and a 56 basis point increase in depreciation and amortization, due to the acquisition-related intangible amortization, the prescription file purchases and the new and relocated store program.

After considering the expenses related to the acquisition and the new and relocated store program, SG&A as a percent of revenue between the quarters decreased 23 basis points. The 23 basis points of improvement came from general and broad based expense control.

We are confident in being able to continue our broad based expense control efforts but we also intend to continue to develop our new and relocated store program. This means occupancy expense will continue to grow. Until the sales growth from the new and relocated stores has a chance to mature, occupancy expense as a percent of revenues will be greater than the prior year's comparable period for a few more years.

Going on down the P&L, store closing and impairment charges were $16.7 million higher than last year's charge. This was due primarily to more stores sold or closed, and a decrease in the discount rate used for the least exit liability on some of the previously closed stores.

Interest expense was $130.3 million for the quarter versus $68.2 million in last year's quarter. The increase was primarily due to the increase in debt that funded the acquisition and the buildup of inventory, and an increase in LIBOR.

Cash interest expense was $123.7 million for this quarter versus $63.6 million last year, and non-cash interest expense was $6.6 million this year versus $4.6 million last year.

Regarding income taxes, it was a benefit for the current quarter. The current quarter benefit was $53.5 million compared to last year's quarter income tax expense of $175,000. Each quarter's income tax benefit or expense was in relation to the pretax loss, or pretax income, and some adjustments for developments that required discreet income tax adjustments.

Net loss for the quarter then was $84.8 million compared to net income of $1.1 million last year. Loss per diluted share was $0.12 for the current quarter compared to $0.01 per diluted share in last year's third quarter.

Each quarter's diluted per share calculation included declared preferred stock dividends. You'll remember that preferred stock dividends are not included in the net loss, but they are considered in calculating per share amounts.

Adjusted EBITDA for this quarter was $232.3 million, or 3.6% of revenues, an increase of $71.5 million from the prior year. The increase was primarily due to the increase in revenue and the resulting increase in gross profit and gross margin rate, along with good expense control. The schedule attached to our press release reconciles our net loss to our adjusted EBITDA.

Now let's turn to cash flow, which is also attached in the statement to the press release. Net cash used by operations was $276.7 million this quarter versus cash provided by operations of $44.8 million in last year's third quarter. The use of cash for the current third quarter primarily was due to the increase in inventory and a decrease in accounts payable.

The inventory increased for the holidays, but we also significantly increased inventory to work through the Brooks Eckerd integration. Integration activities require a temporary incremental investment in inventory that we are replacing for the non go forward inventory increasing the number of SKUs at the warehouses and retrofitting the planograms. Inventory will decrease after the holidays and as we complete the integration.

Net cash used in investing activities for this quarter were $139.1 million versus $90.1 million for last year's third quarter. The increase was primarily due to the higher level of capital expenditures.

Integration-related capital expenditures and our new and relocated store and prescription file programs are continuing to ramp up. For the quarter we spent $198.7 million for property, plant and equipment, $11 million for prescription file purchases, for a total of $209.8 million of capital expenditures in the quarter.

During the quarter we opened 12 new stores, relocated 21, and closed or sold 64 stores. We also remodeled 93 stores during the quarter, 60 of those were Brooks Eckerd stores, and we completed 122 minor remodels of the Brooks Eckerd stores. We had an increase in our sale leaseback proceeds of $10 million during the quarter.

Net cash provided in financing activities for this quarter was $419.1 million versus $97.1 million for last year's third quarter. The current quarter's cash provided in finance activities was primarily due to the additional borrowings under the revolver.

Liquidity continues to be strong. At the end of the quarter we had $1.008 billion outstanding under our $1.75 billion senior secured revolving credit facility. We also had outstanding letters of credit of $184.8 million at the end of the quarter.

Revolver borrowings are at their highest point during the year at the end of our third quarter due to expected increases in inventory for the holiday season, and the integration activities related to inventory and capital expenditures. Our availability under the revolver at the end of the third quarter was over $550 million.

The accounts receivable securitization agreements continued to be a good source of liquidity. At the end of the third quarter we had utilized the securitization agreements for $400 million.

Total debt at the end of the third quarter increased $3.003 billion since the beginning of the fiscal year, and advances from the sale of accounts receivable increased $50 million. The combined balances at the end of the third quarter increased $3.053 billion since the beginning of the fiscal year. The increase was due primarily to the Brooks Eckerd acquisition and the increase in inventory for the holidays and integration.

Finally, let's discuss guidance. Let me be very clear. We are not lowering our guidance for the synergies related to the acquisition. We are very confident in delivering the $200 million of synergies in fiscal 2008 and $300 million in fiscal 2009, however, based on early trends for the cough, cold and flu and the holiday season, we are lowering our guidance previously given for fiscal 2008.

We expect sales to be between $24.3 billion and $24.6 billion, with same-store sales improving 1% to 2%. Previous guidance was for $24.5 billion and $25.1 billion, with same-store sales improving 1.3% to 3.3%.

Net loss for fiscal 2008, including nine months of acquisition-related cost savings of approximately $200 million, is expected to be between $161million and $192 million, or between $0.27 and $0.31 loss per diluted share. Previous guidance was net loss between $78 million and $161 million, or a loss per diluted share of $0.15 to $0.27.

Adjusted EBITDA, which is reconciled to net loss on the attached table, is expected to be between $950 million and $1.0 billion as compared to previous guidance of between $1.0 billion and $1.1 billion.

Capital expenditures, including integration capital expenditures but excluding proceeds from sale and leaseback transactions, are expected to be between $790 million to $820 million. Previous guidance was $825 million to $875 million. Proceeds from sale and leaseback transactions are expected to be approximately $85 million as compared to $100 million.

This concludes our prepared remarks. April, we are now ready to take questions.

Thank you. (OPERATOR INSTRUCTIONS) Your first question comes from the line of Meredith Adler with Lehman Brothers.

Good morning. I have a couple of questions.

I would like to start maybe talking a little bit, I know you don't like to talk about individual divisions or how they're performing, but could you maybe give us some sense in terms of the weakness you're seeing, as particularly in seasonal sales, is there something -- is it concentrated in certain areas, or would you say that it's very widespread weakness?

I'd say, Meredith, that it is probably more widespread than not, but there are certain parts of the country where it's more pronounced, or I think the discretionary element of those seasonal kind of purchases is impacted by the consumer pull back. You know, we've got a lot of stores in areas like Ohio and Michigan and areas like that that are more impacted, Southern California.

Okay.

Because Ohio and Michigan have been weak for a little while, so is Southern California sort of being added to that list of places that are weak?

I think there are parts of Southern California that have been weak. Some of the areas are more impacted by housing issues, et cetera, so I think we've seen that over the last several months.

Okay. Great.

And then another question about, you obviously are very focused on your new store program. Is there anything that's happening, especially if the economy is weakening, in terms of new store performance? Are the new store productivity not coming along the way it should be? Obviously it's early for many of these stores, but are there any negative surprises in that?

I think it's still very early in our program. We'll actually have, I think, a larger number of stores that begin to enter our comp numbers over the next several quarters, but obviously relocations are a lot quicker to show profitability than a net new store because a net new store starts off very low with prescription count and it takes you several years to generate a high enough level to really make those cash flow positive.

I think that they are performing pretty much, I think, as we expected and so we're confident about that program going forward.

Just to remind everybody, our experience has shown that it takes on average three years for a new store to breakeven and then it quickly surpasses the rest of the store portfolio in terms of contribution in the next couple of years. Relocated stores are going to take on average about a year and a half to reach the same level of profitability of the store that it replaced, but then they also quickly get a lot better and positively contribute.

But again, to Mary's point, nothing has been unexpected or surprised us with regards to that, and when we're in this ramping up phase of our program, each continuing, if you will, period of time, has a little more of a burden until those earlier years stores start to help cover that burden.

And then I also have a question about the Brooks Eckerd pharmacies. Is there anything you -- are you disappointed that the trend is still negative?

Obviously you're still in the middle of changing systems, a lot of training going on, but is there any reason to believe that you will not get to a level of performance in the pharmacy that you're, you know, were hoping for?

No, we feel very positive about what we're going to be doing with pharmacy in the Brooks Eckerd stores for the ongoing future. Obviously you have disruption when you do your systems conversion, that's a short-lived disruption.

Putting in any new system causes some temporary issues because you've got the learning curve, but we've really put together a terrific training program. We keep integration specialists with the store.

We've really focused our effort in this area, and we further believe that the modification we made to our rollout program where we're going really get districts fully completed, is really going to also help, because that improves your flexibility and staffing and supervision and I think that's a real positive as we restart up our conversions in January.

Great. I just have one more question for Kevin.

You are guiding to lower Cap Ex number for the year. Can you just talk about what prompted that outcome?

Well, Meredith, we've always committed to a balance between the cash flows that we get from operations and our capital expenditures, and, you know, so that people feel comfortable with the, if you will, the leverage profile, and I think it's driven by that. I'm sure there's also some pieces of it that we've had, some -- we had some things at the very, very end of the year planned for various reasons they are slipping a little bit into next year, but it's primarily driven by our desire to keep things balanced.

And you know, we're probably a couple stores short on our new and relocated target, but very close. Even the way that we stopped some of our process during the holidays, we probably stopped it a few weeks longer than we would have originally thought, but we believed that was better for the customer experience during the holiday season, so that probably shifted a little bit into a little bit later.

I'm quite the Scrooge in the Company here right now.

Well, prudence seems appropriate. Thank you very much.

Thanks, Meredith.

Thanks, Meredith.

Your next question comes from the line of Ed Kelly with Credit Suisse.

Hi.

Mary, could you dissect how much of the lower guidance is related to weaker consumer versus cold, cough and flu? And the reason I ask, is because it's December and the season really doesn't start to pick up until, you know, about this time and then accelerates into next year.

So I'm just wondering, you know, what your assumptions are looking out and why that was baked in at this standpoint, or is more of it just consumer?

Well, it actually is both, and I think as we (inaudible) looked at how trends were developing, we did not see enough strengthening in the cough, cold, flu number for us to feel as positive as we had about what we originally had in there for those scripts. And they're good scripts and they're good traffic creators, too. So that's a part of it.

And I'd say equally a factor is the consumer pull back because that influences any kind of discretionary spending. You know, even though drug stores are probably more recession-proof than other businesses, you still have categories in your mix that certainly are vulnerable and, you know, those have always been strong categories for us in the past.

You mentioned that, you know, you're beginning to increase promotions on a select basis. I mean how promotional are you going to have to get into next year if current trends remain?

Well, we believe it's important for us to be competitive with our promotions and, you know, we're still not going to do what I describe as foolish things, but we are going to make sure that we offer great value in our circulars to be able to get customers into our stores because that traffic is important. And I see it at least going through the holiday season and, you know, potentially into the January-February time period.

And, you know, we continually monitor this and we'll watch what happens with different categories that are certainly more vulnerable to consumer pull back and make adjustments accordingly. We'll watch what our competitors do, too.

And speaking of competitors, I mean what have you seen on that front to date, particularly on the drug store side of the equation? Have they been getting more competitive or more promotional?

I would say yes.

Okay. And in terms of the Eckerd synergies, were the synergies you achieved this quarter in line with what you had expected?

Very much so, Ed.

And can you give us a sense as to how much of that $200 million has been achieved so far year-to-date?

It's very, as we talked before, you've got, because of some of the ramp up, the fourth quarter is not evenly spread throughout the three quarters, but we are, we're very, very close to two-thirds of it.

Okay.

And how much of the disappointment is core Eckerd, I'm sorry, core Rite Aid versus Eckerd? Could you talk a little bit about that?

Well, both certainly contributed to the disappointment, but I mean some of it's expected. You can't go in and do the kinds of things we're doing in the newly acquired stores in changing out all those planograms and what we did in conversions without certainly some disruption.

And some of the factors that effect core Rite Aid sales, like the softer cough, cold and flu, and a more discretionary customer also affect those stores, too. So you've really got the impact from both in there.

Then just lastly, Kevin, could you just go over the liquidity situation? When's your next big maturity, what's on the revolver, what are you expecting in free cash for this year? Do you still expect it to be positive next year?

The required maturities over the next three years are less than $175,000, and $175 million, I'm sorry, and the largest component of that is the $150 million note that's due in December 15th of 2008.

Basically we, as you know, and as we said, as we are going through the integration and ramping up the synergies, fiscal 2008 is going to be what everybody refers to as a negative free cash flow, in other words, operating cash flows will be less than the capital expenditures. But in fiscal 2009, we still expect operating cash flows to exceed Cap Ex and in fact, have a pay down of the revolver.

So from a, if you will, strategic perspective, from a commitment in terms of keeping things balanced, nothing has changed, and we are, if you will, very, very flexible -- we have a lot of flexibility with regards to the revolver. There's no restrictions on it.

So we think we're in very good shape. And as I mentioned, we're at a, our holiday season third quarter sees inventory build along with the planogram, retrofitting the Books Eckerd's along with the moving out of the non go forward inventory and restocking, that, has, if you will, an additional burden in building inventory.

So we are, we're kind of where we need to be, but that doesn't mean we don't have opportunities. I think that I would be remiss in my duties as a CFO by saying that we [aren't] always looking for ways to remove the investment of working capital in the business.

I'm sorry. I just thought of one last question.

You said that your gross margin was up about 16 basis points, but pharmacy's up 41 basis points and front-end's up 122. How does that math work?

Well, you know, I always get in trouble trying to explain this, but it's a function of the sales growth. When you look at the absolute gross margin rate for front-end, which means that the numerator is gross profit dollars or front-end and the denominator is front-end sales, and same for pharmacy, those are the basis points [lift].

But when you take the gross profit from front-end and divide it by consolidated sales, you actually see a negative number because front-end sales grew less than pharmacy sales. I don't know if that helps or not.

Because of the mix, you're saying?

Yes, it's the mix and the growth rate.

You also have distribution expenses included in that calculation also, and, you know, we obviously had higher fuel costs throughout this year and in the quarter and so that also impacted that gross profit rate.

Yes, and the truth of the matter is, we know that we've got some, what I would call, productivity opportunities that once we get through the integration we'll be able to do a lot better. But I just can't capture anything with a lot of confidence and reclassify it, so to speak, to integration expense. So there's always that element that's in there and it'll clear itself up as we get through the integration.

Okay. Thank you.

Your next question comes from the line of Mark Wiltamuth with Morgan Stanley.

Hi, Mark Wiltamuth from Morgan Stanley.

Mary, last Friday a judge blocked the AMP implementation and I guess at the same time, Congress is, Congress was contemplating a delay as well, but it seems like that may have evaporated. Could you just bring us up to speed on where you think things stand with AMP right now?

I think what we do know is that there's nothing likely to happen in January and beyond that, the timing, I think, is still uncertain. But any kind of delay is good news because the longer you can push it off and the more you can get attention paid to the language at what finally comes out, the better off you'll be for retail pharmacy.

So you think there's some prospect that the definition could change a little more?

I think the interpretation of it, I would certainly hope so.

Okay. And do you have any of your commercial contracts tied at all to the Medicaid pricing or federal upper limits or anything like that?

I don't know of any specific ones that I can call out here.

The reference to the federal upper limits is very -- it's like implicitly baked into the contracts but they don't come into play, Mark.

Okay.

And then just to go over the macking trends, our models are showing that we're kind of in one of the most difficult year-over-year comparisons right now because of Zocor and Zoloft. It seems like things should ease a little bit in terms of the year-over-year comparison on macking. Is that fair to say that things are going to be better the next few quarters?

Yes, we haven't actually seen anything real unusual that we had not expected.

Okay.

And just to talk a little bit about your promotional activity, you mentioned getting back to normal promotional levels. Was that at just the Brooks Eckerd stores because you were going through a transition there, or was that at core Rite Aid also?

It was a combination because in some instances there were some things that had been done during that time period last year, out probably more on the West Coast than anywhere else that we just determined not to anniversary also. Some of it is the suppliers really didn't really make the same deal available so we didn't put it in, so that effected core stores, too.

But obviously on the Brooks Eckerd, they were very promotional last year during this time period, particularly towards the end of the quarter, and that continued into the, I'd say, February timeframe. A whole lot of consumables in the ads and a lot of, what I'd call, cherry picker pricing and that we did not repeat in our ads.

Okay.

And just as you're looking at the Brooks Eckerd transition there, how much longer do you think for disruptions on the pharmacy side with the systems and training and so forth?

Well, we've got to get through the balance of the conversions, but I think as the more we do, the better our entire support network for the stores that get converted get so that we lessen the amount of time that there is disruption and make sure that, again, we keep integration specialists with the store until they're comfortable with the system.

And so we think that's, any of the trends there will improve as we finish the rest of the stores. And we are, we still are confident in completing all of the conversions and minor remodels by fall of next year.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Your next question comes from the line of Lisa Gill with JPMorgan.

Thanks very much, and good morning.

Hi, Lisa.

Just a couple of follow-up questions.

As it relates to AMP, Kevin, can you just talk about what you currently have in your expectations around guidance and therefore, if it continues to be delayed, I mean is this something that we could see come back on the other side?

And then, Mary, as we think about the trends on the front-end, are you seeing that the people are filling their basket less, or you're actually seeing less traffic in the stores? You know, what are the drivers around, you know, the seasonal products?

I'll answer the -- if you can remember the question--

You do the AMP and I'll do the other one.

I'll answer the AMP one. Lisa, remember, Medicaid is 9.3% of my pharmacy sales and a lot, you know, approximately 80% of that is branded drugs and then the 20% is the generic.

But at the end of the day, we don't like to answer questions about customer types or customer profitability, and so we're not going to tell you what specifically has been stirred into our guidance, but we do have some in terms of, you know, we think there's the possibility that there'll still be some lost gross profit in this fiscal year.

And then also, can you just follow-up, Kevin, I think you made the comment that some of your commercial contracts are tied to the federal upper limit, but you don't think that any changes to AMP would have an impact on that contract. Can you just talk a little bit about that aspect of it, so would you expect that the reimbursement methodology would change on those contracts, or that--

No, no, I'm not expecting that to change. It's just that I'm told that when they're going through and establishing the different, if you will, reimbursement amounts and/or the fund, is that the federal upper limit is implicitly stirred into that, but it's usually it doesn't come into play. So therefore if that changes, I don't think it's going to have an impact on our third parties.

Okay.

And then, Mary, just thoughts on some of the trends you're seeing. Is it slower traffic specifically, or is it the basket size that people are walking out with?

Yes, well, I think you think about the areas that are soft. You've got, you know, the customers not in there for a lot of the cough, cold and flu that they would have been in there for and then Christmas itself has got off to a softer start. And that's the, again, discretionary element of what people can choose to either delay or wait for a sale and whatnot.

So I think I mentioned in my comments that certain kinds of categories actually strengthened by the end of the quarter and that OTC stayed overall pretty solid.

Okay. And then I guess just one last question. Does any of the change in guidance change any of your plans for store development as we move forward?

You know, we have, really, I think, real reasonable goals for store development in terms of the number of net new and relocated stores. Our number one priority is, of course, the integration and getting the minor remodels all completed, so that's probably at the top of our deck. But we're going to continue to work against our new store and relocated program, and we think that's an important part of our growth initiative for the future.

Okay. Great. Thank you.

Your next question comes from the line of John Heinbockel with Goldman Sachs.

The -- would you guys say ex-synergy, the, you know, the biggest drag on EBITDA was the real estate program, the remodels and the new stores, is that the biggest drag at this point?

Very much so, along, of course, with the increased interest expense.

Now, do you think, if you think, say, out to next year we'll be, the real estate program be less of a drag, the same or, I don't imagine it'd be worse.

No, it will be a little bit worse because basically remember the -- like we are going to be opening up in the fourth quarter, John, approximately 51 stores, and you got the full-year effect of that next year. So it's going to be another year or so where I've got an increasing burden.

When you think about D&A and the two items that you gave which collectively were over 100 basis points on SG&A, the drag will be maybe modestly worse than that next year, is that essentially right?

Yes, only modestly, and part of that depreciation and amortization is due to the prescription files that we buy from the independents, but also the amortization of what was allocated, the purchase price for Brooks Eckerd. And that's got a very short amortization period to it as well as, and some of it is it's driven by the retentions that you see and so there's, it will, that part of it will start to go down.

So the, I mean you'll get the synergy benefit next year, obviously a step up. It sounds like you probably won't see the full potential of the combination, you know, those real estate costs moderating until the following fiscal year. That's when you'll kind of see the whole thing come together.

Yes, not, yes, that's true, John, but also remember we're working very, very hard on looking for additional synergies. We still have I think some -- and we don't know the timing of when we're going to start to see the benefit of that.

Obviously, the most significant one is basically the front-end sales for the Brooks Eckerd stores are 35% less than the similar Rite Aid stores and they've got very similar square footage footprint. When we know that, we'll obviously tell everybody, but we don't know the timing of it and so keep that in the back of your mind.

What have been the results of the pilot stores? Do you have a general sense of that, or is it too early?

Again, we really just kicked off any of our grand opening advertising starting mid-November, because you had to wait to get enough things done. So by the time we get to our next quarter call we should have quite a bit of sales information to share with everybody.

And that should not be impacted, those numbers should be fairly clean, not likely impacted by the consumer in cough, cold too much?

No, certainly, or any store have some impact from the things that are effecting all stores, but we should have, in comparison, a good read on those compared to the other stores.

All right.

Then finally, you sound pretty comfortable with the revolver availability. I mean at this point you don't see the need to go out and kind of raise permanent capital to, you know, to be able to execute the Cap Ex program over the longer-term? You're happy with the availability on the revolver?

Very much so, John. I mean we basically established our revolver and the mix of revolver and term loan and senior notes with the idea in mind that we needed to have a lot of flexibility and a lot of liquidity to support our business plans over the next several years.

I know it's in the back of everybody's mind because the markets are so whatever you want to call it, goofy right now, but we don't have to access the capital markets to execute our, and support our business plan.

Okay. Thanks.

Thanks, John.

Your next question comes from the line of Neil Currie with UBS.

Good morning. Thanks for taking the question.

Good morning.

Good morning.

You said about '09 and you're looking to be cash flow positive and hope to pay down the revolver. We don't exactly know the extent of the negativity of the Brooks sales.

If you can't by, through '09 get those Brooks sales into positive territory, would you continue to have to moderate Cap Ex to insure that you are cash flow positive for '09 or would you maybe consider some, maybe related to John's question, consider some asset sales maybe in order to boost the cash flow and, you know, focus on continuing to spend the Cap Ex?

What I'm trying to say is what's more important, getting the stores right, spending the money on the stores or maintaining that balance between cash flow and Cap Ex?

Number one to us is getting the stores completed successfully and getting the sales producing the way that we believe they will produce. You know, we had a lot of impact, of course, on the sales during the quarter we just finished because of all the planograms we were doing.

But those planograms are substantially done, so even as we do the minor remodels next year, we're not going to have nearly as much inventory turn because we aren't going to be having to pull a lot of non go forward stuff out we pretty well got that out of the stores. So we would expect to see faster sales lift from what we're doing. So that is a high priority for us.

And can you give us a sense of where the Brooks Eckerd sales are, how negative they are and whether you'll be looking for them to sort of get into flat territory next year or actually see some positive progression?

Well, we don't break out the sales themselves. I think we said that they were negative when we got them. They continued to be negative. The trend actually did worsen during the third quarter, but that was because of the disruption that I talked about, which is now behind us.

So we would expect them to begin improving and we're seeing that with the activities that we're doing. The pace of it, you know, is still obviously a question mark, but we've got, I think, some strong programs to get our message out to customers and a really good program to complete the work we have to do ahead of us, so we'd expect sales to really improve as we move through this next year.

Okay. Thanks, Mary. Good luck.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Your next question comes from the line of Bryan Hunt with Wachovia.

Thank you.

Just to continue on that discussion of the resets and the planograms, were the sales changes in this quarter in line with what you thought going through the planogram process? And again, if you could restate, was this the quarter in which this will be most pronounced?

Well, this was the quarter where we did the majority of the planograms that need to get done. So, and, you know, you've got the other factors that enter into sales trends, too.

I mentioned the cough, cold and flu and even just seasonal being softer. Plus remember, we did not repeat those give-away promotions that Brooks Eckerd has run last year. So, and those continued for them last year up until February and that's about when they stopped those. So we'll continue to work through those.

I think a lot of the things that we've added to our marketing and merchandising program over the next few months will also, though, help the sales here, too.

Okay.

Next, if I look at the, your prescription file buys so far this year, could you give us a total dollar amount and the total number of scripts that have been purchased, as well as would your prescription comps be positive without the file buys?

We expect to spend about $60 million this year for file buys, Bryan.

As far as the number of scripts are concerned, it -- I actually don't have the number and that's not how -- we look at what's expected to be retained and based upon the discounted cash flow over a five-year certain period of time with no residual value, that determines what we're willing to pay for a particular opportunity. So I don't really have a number for you on that.

I would have to say that from our best estimate, and we do track the prescription file buys and they come in throughout the year, but I think they have a significant contribution to the script growth, but there's more than just that. So it would still be positive without that.

Yes, because remember, you've got certain things that are negative because cough, cold and flu not being so strong, so you're also offsetting that with your other initiatives that you have in place.

Okay.

And then lastly, looking at, you know, clinics, clinic, in-store clinics have been a big topic for everybody in the industry in the last, I would say, 12 months. One, could you talk about the total number of in-store clinics you have, quantify that for us?

And then second, when you put in an in-store clinic with one of your partners, what's the average sales lift you get?

Well, we don't have the unique relationship that, say, a Walgreen's or a CVS has with their Minute Clinic and Take Care. We've taken a different approach to the clinics where we are partnering with local well-known healthcare resources.

For instance, I've mentioned Lindora several times in Southern California or Sutter up in Sacramento, (inaudible) in Boise. But our number of clinics that we have is really only about a dozen at this point in time. We've got additional that have been already agreed to with a couple of the people I just mentioned and we are working on a number of other potential partnerships, but we're not ready to announce those yet.

We think that the clinic strategy can be an important part of our health and wellness offering, but it also does require a certain number of patient visits per day to each of those clinics for them to really be financially sound and we also believe that it gives you a lift on your sales, but on prescriptions and related other products, but we don't have enough basis yet to really give you a good number.

The key thing right now that we're concerned about is that brand recognition on the part of the customers as well as the staffing, and we think the way we're going about it gets us the best opportunity for pursuing those.

Kevin, last question. Looking at the amount of working capital you've built to complete the integration, how big is that number in your opinion? And when on a timing basis do you see that coming off?

Well, it's a little bit a mixed bag of things, Bryan, because of the normal, what I would call, holiday season build. But because of that planograms and the non go forward inventory, that's probably over half of the build and we expect to work it down in the fourth quarter. Both the holiday season, as well as the returns inventory, no go forward inventory and things of that nature.

Now, remember, Easter is early and so we're building a little bit more in February than we did a year ago, but we're watching it and working things down and we feel like we're going to get where we want to be with regards to our investment in working capital.

All right. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Operator, we'll take one more question.

Okay. Thank you, ma'am. Your next question comes from the line of Carla Casella with JPMorgan.

Hi. My question relates to--

Hi, Carla.

How are you?

SG&A spending, it sounds like there's a lot of items in your SG&A for the quarter that won't recur, specifically any additional labor or costs involved in the planogram change. Can you quantify or give us a sense for how much of the SG&A will recur versus won't recur in the fourth quarter?

Well, Carla, we, when an expense is identified as being associated and related directly to the integration and we have, and we know that it's going to go away, we classify it into the integration expense category which is what we've disclosed on our chart, as well as the 80-some basis points impact in the quarter. So I'm not quite sure.

Now, maybe what you're saying is that there are some expenses that people are preoccupied with something with the integration and they might otherwise be doing something else and so we've got some missed productivity improvements, or opportunities, and I would agree with you on that. But I can't quantify that and I certainly don't try to reduce our run rate expense for that. And it'll manifest itself as we get through the integration and complete it.

Okay.

Overall we feel really good about our SG&A control, other than those very specific areas that Kevin mentioned that are investments, like our occupancy.

Okay. Great.

And then in your guidance for the full-year, does that assume you continue to see consumer weakness and any kind of gross margin pressure you could see from having to discount seasonal merchandise?

Yes. I mean, obviously, those are key components of our guidance.

Okay. And then one last question.

On Brooks Eckerd, can you just talk about the dispersion in terms of the performance of stores and either revenue or profitability? Is there a real wide range of performance in the Brooks Eckerd stores based either by region or store size, or are you learning anything as you get further into this integration process?

Well, you know, the average store sizes are very comparable to our average store size. I mean that was across the areas that they operated in, and I think they have sort of the same mixed bag that we have in different markets with different sizes of stores, so we're also comfortable with working with those different sizes of stores.

We don't really break out specific areas as, you know, better or worse than others. We do know overall, though, that in really almost all of the areas where we operate core Rite Aid stores and there are Brooks Eckerd stores that we have substantial front-end sales opportunities based on our performance in those very same markets.

So that's that 35% productivity improvement opportunity that we have as we get all of the work completed and really are able to execute our full program.

Okay. And I'm sorry, did I cut you off, Kevin?

No.

Okay.

In terms of, you mentioned that 35% productivity made me think about the, of the synergies that you expect, can you talk about the key areas where you have not yet given the synergy figures but where you think there may be some opportunities? What are the remaining--

Sure. They kind of can fit into four types of opportunities, Carla. The most significant and the one that we're the most excited about is the Brooks Eckerd front-end sales in the opportunity for getting their store productivity up to the level of the similar Rite Aid stores in the same market.

The second one is basically the, if you will, our ability to get more purchasing scale primarily in the areas of things that we're buying for our own consumption, like supplies and uniforms, things of that nature, as well as that second and third tier of front-end vendors because we've got to go through an entire business cycle before we have the opportunity to really go for best price and lowering the cost of the product.

The third most significant opportunity is we have 14 distribution centers and we know we don't need 14. We're just not in a position to tell you what we ultimately have decided to do and when we will get down to a lower number of distribution centers.

And then the last one is that we have, even though we have identified and have begun combining about 145 or so stores that are in close proximity, set those aside for a moment, we are working on, there still are stores that are, if you will, they're candidates for combining those two stores into a relocated store program, or position, and that also will achieve some synergy. So those are the four kinds of opportunities that we're pretty excited about.

Okay. That's great. Thanks a lot.

Thank you.

Thanks, everybody, for your interest in our company, and I look forward to talking to you again next quarter. Happy holidays.

Thank you. This does conclude today's conference call. You may now disconnect.