Walgreens Boots Alliance, Inc.

Good morning. My name is Jessa, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Walgreens Boots Alliance, Inc. Third Quarter 2019 Earnings Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star, then the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, please press the pound key. Thank you. Mr. Gerald Gradwell, you may begin your conference.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to our third quarter earnings call. I'm here today with Stefano Pessina, our Executive Vice Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Walgreens Boots Alliance, James Kehoe, our Global Chief Financial Officer, and Alec Gurley, Co-Chief Operating Officer of Walgreens Boots Alliance and President of Walgreens. Before I hand you over to Stefano to make some opening comments, I will, as usual, take you through the legal safe harbour and cautionary declarations. Certain statements and projections of future results made in this presentation constitute forward-looking statements that are based on our current market competitive and regulatory expectations and are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to vary materially. Except to the extent required by the law, we undertake no obligation to update publicly any forward-looking statements after this presentation, whether as a result of new information, future events, changes in assumptions, or otherwise. please see our latest Form 10-K and 10-Q for a discussion of risk factors as they relate to forward-looking statements. In today's presentation, we will use certain non-GAAP financial measures. We refer you to the appendix in the presentation materials available on our Investor Relations website for reconciliations to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures and related information. You'll find a link to the webcast on our investor relations website at investor.walgreensbootsalliance.com. After the call, this presentation and webcast will be archived on the website for 12 months. I will now hand you over to Stefano.

Thank you, Gerald, and hello, everyone. After what was a very disappointing second quarter for us, it is pleasing to be able to report that this quarter has been broad in line with our expectations. That said, The pressures we have seen for some time continue to impact our businesses, and we still have a lot to do to deliver the transformation that will allow us to get ahead of the market trends again and return our company to strong and consistent growth. We were clear that the action we were undertaking to address the market changes takes time, and the impact will therefore not fully be reflected in our financial performance until future financial years. But we have been working hard to accelerate our plans and programs. I have repeatedly said that we have within our company the skills and the assets we need to address the challenges we face as our markets evolve and transform. Last quarter, We told you that we would focus on accelerating the work we are doing to transform our company. We are doing that. The transformational cost management programs that we began early this year is one of the underlying foundations of the changes we need to make. Most importantly, this program will help drive a structural change in the company. making us a more efficient, more agile, and more responsive organization. It is expected to provide a significant portion of the funding required for our major technology upgrade and development investments. And, of course, an element of it will help to give us a bridge in our financial performance as we restructure our businesses to better meet the needs of of an ever more rapidly changing market. James and Alex will address some of these points as they talk you through the quarter, which I will ask them to do now. James?