Fundamental analysis of Walgreen Boots Alliance, July 7, 2017

Description:

Walgreen Boots Alliance is an American pharmacy chain with many business areas in the health sector.

Valuation:

At $78 and a trailing P/E of 20.3, the company is expensive. Looking at an average of the past three years’ earnings, the P/E comes in at 23.7 which is not better. Because of their intangible assets the Price to Book value is also very high at 19.0.

Balance sheet:

The company has a Debt to equity ratio of 1.4 and a Working capital to debt ratio of 0.2 which is OK, but not extraordinary. The Net working capital is $8.9 bn which of course is a lot of cash.

Last year, the Return on equity was 14 per cent which was OK, but not extraordinary. A high Return on equity usually correlates with a high Free cash flow.

Free cash flow and dividend:

Last year Walgreen Boots had a Free cash flow of $6.5 bn which allows them to buy back a lot of the expensive shares that they have issued.

It also allows them to pay a dividend of 1.46 (1.9 per cent). The dividend has been uninterrupted and increasing for at least 25 years.

Conclusion:

The company is too expensive at these prices. Ideally I would like to see them fall by 50 per cent before dipping my toes.

There is nothing wrong with the company, but it is simply too expensive.

 If you would like to learn more about fundamental analysis you can do that here.

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