Walgreens Boots Alliance: Walgreens is a private U.S. retail pharmacy company after Sycamore Partners completed its WBA acquisition in August 2025. The last public FY2024 WBA sales figure was $147.7B.
Walgreens Boots Alliance: Key Facts
| Company Name | Walgreens Boots Alliance |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1901 |
| Founder(s) | Charles R. Walgreen Sr. |
| Headquarters | Deerfield, Illinois |
| Industry | Retail Pharmacy and Healthcare |
| CEO | Mike Motz |
| Employees | about 211,000 |
| Revenue | $147.7B in FY2024 |
| Net Income | -$8.6B |
| Status | Private |
| Stock Symbol | Formerly WBA (Nasdaq) |
| Website | https://corporate.walgreens.com/ |
Walgreens is no longer a public turnaround story. Sycamore Partners completed the Walgreens Boots Alliance acquisition on August 28, 2025, WBA stock stopped trading, and Walgreens began operating as a private standalone company under CEO Mike Motz. The last full public-year financial anchor remains FY2024 WBA sales of $147.7 billion and a net loss of $8.6 billion.
What Is the History of Walgreens Boots Alliance?
Walgreens began in Chicago in 1901 as Charles R. Walgreen Sr. built a pharmacy chain around service and convenience.
The 2014 Walgreens Boots Alliance combination created a global public pharmacy group, but it also added complexity during a period when U.S. pharmacy economics were deteriorating.
In 2025 Sycamore Partners completed the take-private transaction, WBA stock stopped trading, and Walgreens moved into a private standalone turnaround phase.
How Does Walgreens Make Money?
Walgreens earns from prescriptions, immunizations, front-end retail, health services, specialty pharmacy relationships, and loyalty-driven customer activity.
The private-company strategy is to simplify the footprint, improve pharmacy economics, close or repair weak stores, and preserve the customer relationships that make the network valuable.
Walgreens Revenue and Financials
The last public WBA fiscal year showed the scale and the stress together: FY2024 sales were $147.7 billion, while net loss attributable to WBA was about $8.6 billion. That loss reflected heavy impairment, restructuring, and healthcare-services pressure, especially around VillageMD.
Walgreens Strategy
The strategy is operational repair: focus on pharmacy, improve store contribution, close weak locations, reduce complexity, preserve customer trust, and use private ownership to restructure the company outside quarterly public-market pressure.
Walgreens future now depends on whether private ownership can simplify the business, improve store productivity, stabilize pharmacy economics, and separate or rationalize assets faster than the public company could. The immediate question is not growth at any cost; it is whether the core pharmacy network can produce durable cash flow.
Walgreens Timeline
Charles R. Walgreen Sr. opens the first Walgreens drugstore in Chicago. [source]
Walgreens completes the Alliance Boots combination, creating the public WBA group. [source]
WBA expands investment in VillageMD as part of a healthcare-services strategy that later causes major impairment pressure. [source]
WBA reports $147.7B in sales and an $8.6B net loss, with heavy impairment and restructuring pressure. [source]
Sycamore Partners completes the Walgreens Boots Alliance acquisition; WBA shares cease trading and are delisted from Nasdaq. [source]
Walgreens begins operating as a private standalone company with Mike Motz appointed CEO. [source]
