Walgreen Crunches Numbers from USA Drug Buy

Hungry for info on Walgreen Co.’s September purchase of USA Drug?

Here are some new numbers. According to the Deerfield, Ill., company’s earnings report for its fiscal first quarter, which ended Nov. 30, buying USA Drug from Stephen L. LaFrance Holdings Inc. cost Walgreen’s $416 million, “net of assumed cash, subject to adjustment in certain circumstances.”

Since that’s still a little squishy, we used the original price tag announced for the deal, $438 million, in this week’s list of the biggest deals of 2012.

The acquisition, which closed on Sept. 17, a couple of weeks into Walgreen’s first quarter, added $102 million to Walgreen’s first-quarter revenue, and Walgreen’s spent $26 million closing some of the bought-out stores. The buy — along with Walgreen’s acquisition of BioScrip Inc. of Eden Prairie, Minn., in May — increased Walgreen’s sales by 1.5 percent in the quarter.

Its expenses increased by $194 million, or 4.6 percent, over the quarter, of which the USA Drug buy accounted for 1.2 percent.

During the quarter, Walgreen’s added 231 total locations, 141 of which were USA Drug locations. The chain has almost 8,000 locations total.

In the report, Walgreen’s said the purchase “fit our long-term growth objectives.”