CVS Caremark announces 4Q results and retirement of Dave Rickard
WOONSOCKET, R.I. CVS Caremark announced on Thursday record results for the fourth quarter and announced the retirement of Dave Rickard, EVP, CFO and chief administrative officer of CVS Caremark.
Net revenues for the fourth quarter ended Dec. 31 increased $2.2 billion to $24.1 billion, up from $21.9 billion during the year-ago period.
Revenues in the pharmacy services segment rose 1.5% to $11.8 billion during the quarter. Adjusting the growth rate for the impact of new generics, net revenues would have grown 7.8%.
Revenues in the retail drug store segment increased 18.8% to $13.8 billion, while same-store sales rose 3.6 percent. Pharmacy same-store sales increased 4.5%and were negatively impacted by about 260 basis points due to recent generic introductions. Front-end same-store sales increased 1.8%.
Earnings from continuing operations for the fourth quarter increased 17% to $953.3 million compared with last year's earnings from continuing operations of $815 million. Diluted earnings per common share from continuing operations totaled 65 cents compared with 55 cents in the year-ago period.
During the company's fourth-quarter conference call with analysts Thursday morning, Tom Ryan, chairman, president and CEO of CVS Caremark, announced that Rickard, who has served as CFO since 1999, will retire at the end of the year.
"Dave is in perfect health and the company is in perfect health and that is why he feels it is really time," Ryan told analysts. "Dave has been a great CFO and a better partner with me for the past nine years, and his shoes will certainly be hard to fill but there are some terrific internal candidates who have worked side-by-side with Dave and we will also take time to canvas the external environment before making this important decision."
Rickard had originally planned on retiring in late 2010 but decided to move that up to achieve some personal goals.
"I have reached a point in my life where I have accomplished everything I want to from a career and financial perspective, and now I have some personal goals I would like to tackle and I want to get on to them while I still have plenty of energy," said Rickard, who noted he will work to ensure a smooth transition process.