David M. Denton
Analyst · Meredith Adler, Barclays Capital
Thank you, Larry, and good morning, everyone. Today, I'll provide a detailed review of our first quarter financial results. I'll also provide guidance for the second quarter and update our guidance for the full year of 2012. But first, let me start with a summary of what we've been doing from a capital allocation standpoint. As you know, we raised our quarterly dividend this year by 30%, our ninth consecutive year with an increase. So in the quarter, we paid approximately $211 million in dividends. And given our earnings expectations for this year, we anticipate a payout ratio of approximately 21%, keeping us comfortably on track to achieve our targeted payout ratio of between 25% and 30% by 2015. In regard to share repurchase, we had $3 billion left under our current authorization when we entered 2012. During the first quarter, we repurchased a total of 18.1 million shares at an average cost of $44.69 per share. So between dividends and share repurchases, we have returned more than $1 billion to our shareholders just in the first quarter. It is my expectation that, at a minimum, we will complete the remaining $2.2 billion on the current repurchase authorization this year. And between dividends and share purchase, we'll allocate roughly $3.8 billion to enhancing shareholder value. And additionally, we continue to be focused on maintaining our credit ratings and have set an adjusted debt-to-EBITDA target of 2.7x. And as I said before, we are committed to our capital allocation program remaining a vital component to driving shareholder value. Through it, we'll take advantage of the powerful cash flow generation capabilities of CVS Caremark, both in the near term as well as the longer term. We generated more than $2.4 billion of free cash in the quarter, an increase of more than $840 million from the prior year, due mainly to an increase in our accrued expenses. We received advance payments from CMS for the April time period, which drove the increase in accrued expenses. With April 1 falling on the weekend, CMS sent the payments to us before the first quarter ended. And the same thing will happen in the second quarter and then it will reverse in the third. Without the advance payments, free cash flow was in line with the prior year period. During the quarter, our underlying free cash flow was driven by strong earnings, as well as solid year-over-year improvements in accounts receivables and accounts payable. Partially offsetting these positive drivers was inventory, which increased on the retail side from year end as we stocked up to handle the influx of new customers. Of course, it was important to remain in stock during the time that customers were switching pharmacy homes, and we'll continue to monitor inventory levels going forward. And despite the quarterly dollar increase in inventory, inventory days within the retail segment improved by more than one day from the end of last year. And combined with gains in DPO and DSO, we reduced our retail cash cycle by more than 2 days so far this year. As we continue to make process improvements, the retail team remains committed to its inventory reduction target of $500 million for the full year, and working capital improvements such as these are expected to continue to enhance our cash generation capabilities. Given the lack of any sale leaseback activities, net and gross capital spending for the first quarter was $376 million, an increase of nearly $80 million from the prior year period. Turning to the income statement. Adjusted earnings per share was $0.65 for the quarter with GAAP diluted EPS from continuing operations and at $0.59 per share, both $0.02 above the high end of our guidance. As Larry said, while our operating results came in at the high end of our expectations, the EPS beat was driven by financial-related items including the change in inventory accounting methods, interest and lower shares outstanding. I'll address all of these in a moment, but first, let me walk down the P&L. On a consolidated basis, revenues in the first quarter increased by nearly 20% to $30.8 billion. Drilling down by segment. Net revenues increased by 32% in the PBM to $18.3 billion. The majority of the growth from last year was driven by the addition of the Universal American business to our book, as well as new client starts. However, we did see higher revenues than expected due to higher drug cost inflation, which was partially offset by increases in the generic dispensing rate. PBM pharmacy network revenues in the quarter increased 34% from 2011 levels to $12.6 billion, while pharmacy network claims grew by 26%. Total mail choice revenues increased by 29% to $5.7 billion, while mail choice claims expanded by 17%. Our overall mail choice penetration rate was 22.8%, down approximately 120 basis points versus LY. This decrease was driven by the addition of the Universal American Med D business, which has a lower mail penetration rate than our average book of business. In our retail business, we saw revenues increase 10% in the quarter to $16 billion. This increase was primarily driven by our same-store sales increase of 8.4% as well as net revenues from new stores, relocations and MinuteClinic, which accounted for approximately 150 basis points of the increase. And Larry talked about our pharmacy and front store comps in some detail, so I won't go into those here. Turning to gross margin. The consolidated company reported 16.6% in the quarter, a contraction of approximately 185 basis points compared to Q1 of '11. Within the PBM segment, gross margin was down approximately 120 basis points versus last year's first quarter. The decrease was primarily driven by price compression, increased expenses associated with a significant number of new client starts on 1/1 and our expanding Medicare Part D operations. As you know, profitability in the Med D business is back-half weighted, with the Med D business experiencing losses in the first part of every year. So as our Med D business grows, this trend will become more pronounced. Partially offsetting these was the positive margin impact from the approximately 275-basis-point increase and the PBM generic dispensing rate, which grew from 73.8% to 76.5%. This was due, in large part, to a 520-basis-point increase in mail choice GDR. New generic drug introductions had a positive impact, as did our continuous effort to encourage plan members to use generics whenever available and appropriate. Gross margin in the retail segment was 28.5%, up approximately 10 basis points year-over-year, mainly due to the change in inventory accounting I mentioned a few moments ago. Excluding this change, gross margin at retail was down approximately 5 basis points. In regards to the accounting change, the details are provided in the 10-Q we filed this morning, but let me summarize it for you now. Prior to this year, we valued pharmacy inventory in our stores using the retail inventory method. Beginning in January, all pharmacy inventory in the retail segment is now valued using the weighted average cost method, consistent with how the PBM values it. This only affects the pharmacy portion of our retail inventory. Front store inventory will continue to be valued using the retail method of accounting. In the pharmacy, we believe that the weighted average cost method provides a better matching of cost of goods sold with revenue. It also allows us to have a consistent inventory valuation method for all our pharmacy inventory across the enterprise. So what's the overall impact from this change? Over an extended period of time, both methods produce similar results. However, because both methods use averaging, certain timing differences between the 2 can occur periodically. But due to how it addresses actual quantities on hand, the weighted average cost method results in a greater level of precision, leading to a better matching of cost of goods sold with revenue. Had we had not made this accounting change, we estimate our gross profit for the first quarter would have been approximately $30 million lower and our EPS would have been approximately $0.01 lower. The impact from this change was not considered in our prior guidance because the accounting change was not finalized at the time of our fourth quarter call. Going forward, the impact from this chain will be -- change will be included in our guidance. Additionally, we plan to disclose the difference, if any, between each method in our 10-Q filings throughout 2012. And we don't expect the change to have a material impact on EPS for this year, but there are expected to be some quarters with a positive impact and others with a negative impact. And as I've mentioned, additional details of this accounting change are included in Note 2 to our financial statements, which are included in our 10-Q filings that we filed this morning. Now putting this change aside, as we expected, we saw margin pressure from pharmacy reimbursement rates and the growth of Maintenance Choice. These unfavorable factors were partially offset by an increased generic dispensing rate, with retail GDR increasing by 290 basis points to 78.1%. Total operating expenses as a percent of revenues improved by approximately 135 basis points versus the first quarter of '11. The PBM segment's SG&A rate improved by approximately 25 basis points to 1.5%. This was primarily due to expense leverage gained by the strong revenue growth, which was partially offset by the addition of the operations associated with our acquisition the Universal American Medicare Part D business. In the retail segment, SG&A as a percent of sales improved by approximately 45 basis points to 20.4%. This improvement in expense leverage was again driven by solid sales growth and continued discipline around expense controls. Within the Corporate segment, expenses were up approximately $21 million to $168 million, or less than 1% of consolidated revenues, improving by approximately 5 basis points versus the same period in 2011. And with the change in gross margin more than offsetting the improvements in SG&A as a percent of sales, operating margin for the total enterprise declined by approximately 50 basis points to 4.6%, in line with our expectations. Operating margin in the PBM was 1.9%, down about 90 basis points, while operating margin at retail was 8.1%, up about 60 basis points. Retail operating profit increased a very healthy 18%, at the high end of our guidance range, and PBM operating profit declined 11%, also near the top of our guidance range. And going below the line on the consolidated income statement. We saw net interest expense in the quarter decline by approximately $2 million to $132 million versus last year. Interest was favorable to our expectations due in large part to our strong cash flow position. Additionally, our expected income tax rate was 39%, as expected, and our weighted average share count was 1.31 billion shares, approximately 5 million shares lower than anticipated. Now let me update you on our guidance for the full year '12 and provide guidance for the second quarter. Please note that this guidance reflects the potential estimated benefit that the Walgreens-Express Scripts impasse continues only through the end of the second quarter. It does not include any potential benefit beyond the second quarter. I'll review the highlights of our guidance, but you can find all the details in the slide presentation we posted on our website. We currently expect to deliver adjusted EPS in 2012 of between $3.23 and $3.33 per share, reflecting very healthy year-over-year growth of 15.5% to 19%. GAAP diluted EPS from continuing operations is expected to be between $3.01 and $3.11. This guidance includes the $0.03 to $0.04 benefit expect to see during the second quarter from the Walgreens-Express Scripts impasse and does not include any benefit for the third or fourth quarters. Taking into account the expected impact from the new ESI-Walgreens scripts in the first half, we currently anticipate a consolidated net revenue growth of between 13.5% and 15%. Both segments of our business should see strong revenue growth, especially the PBM, which is benefiting from the addition of new clients following a great 2012 selling season. Also recall that our estimates include one extra day in '12 versus '11 for leap year. Within the retail segment, we now expect revenues to increase year-over-year by 5% to 6%, an increase of 200 basis points over our prior guidance. Obviously, this increase is being primarily driven by the Walgreens-Express Scripts impasse that continued into the second quarter. We expect same-store sales for the year to be in the range of 3.5% to 4.5% and same-store scripts to be in the range of 5% to 6%. We continue to expect gross margin in this segment to be moderately up over 2011, while operating expenses as a percent of revenues are expected to be modest -- to modestly increase. As a result, operating profit margin in the retail segment now is expected to grow between 10.5% and 12.5%, another increase of 200 basis points from our prior guidance. Retail operating profit margin is expected to increase by 40 to 50 basis points. Within the PBM segment, we are increasing our revenue growth expectations by 100 basis points to between 23.5% and 25.5%. Given the amount of drug price inflation we've experienced in the first quarter, we expect inflation to exceed our initial expectations throughout the year, although not at the levels we've seen to date. Gross margin in the PBM are still expected to be down notably, while we anticipate moderate improvement in operating expense as a percent of revenue. We expect a decline in the PBM's operating margin of between 30 and 40 basis points and an increase in PBM operating profit of between 11% and 15% for the full year. The only other items of note at the consolidated level are interest and amortization. We are reducing our interest expense guidance by $10 million and now expect between $550 million and $560 million of net interest for the full year. At the same time, we have increased our amortization outlook by approximately $15 million to $475 million reflecting, the Health Net PDP acquisition in the PBM segment. Our free cash flow guidance remains unchanged for the year at a range of $4.6 billion to $4.9 billion. And for the second quarter, we expect adjusted EPS of between $0.78 and $0.80 per share, reflecting growth of 20% to 24% over the same period of last year. GAAP diluted EPS from continuing operation is expected to be in the range of $0.72 to $0.74 in the second quarter. As I mentioned earlier, this includes a $0.03 to $0.04 benefit from the Walgreens-Express Scripts impasse. Consolidated revenues are expected to increase 16% to 17.5%. In the retail segment, revenues are expected to increase 6.5% to 7.5% versus the second quarter of '11. While the majority of our top line increase reflects the continued share gains in retail, it also reflects an increase in drug inflation, which is helping to offset some of the deflation from new generic introductions. As with the PBM, we've assumed that we'll see more inflation going forward, but not at the first quarter levels. Same-store sales growth is expected to be in the range of 5% to 6%. And as you model second quarter comps versus what we've achieved in the first quarter, you should keep a few things in mind with respect to the front store. We will have a slight negative Easter shift, given the holiday season is 14 days shorter in the second quarter this year versus last year. We also expect to see a tougher allergy comparison in the second quarter given the early onset of the season and the shift of sales into the first quarter. And of course, the benefit of leap day will not repeat itself. That said, we still expect front store comps to be healthy in the second quarter, just not at the level of the first quarter. Same-store script growth is expected to be in the range of 6.5% to 7.5%. Operating profit in the retail segment is expected to grow between 16.5% and 18.5% during the second quarter. Revenues at the PBM are expected to grow by 27% to 29%, largely reflecting the new client additions and the ramp-up in the UAM business. PBM operating profit is expected to be up 7% to 11% in the quarter. So in conclusion, we've turned in another solid quarter, and our outlook for the year remains very good. We've also continued to generate very significant free cash flow, and that will play an important role in driving shareholder value now as well as in the future. And with that, I'll turn it back to Larry.