Walgreens Boots Alliance, Inc.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by and welcome to the Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc. Fourth Quarter Earnings 2020 conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star 1 on your telephone. Please limit questions to one question only. If you require any further assistance, please press star zero. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Gerald Gradwell, Senior Vice President of Special Projects and Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to our fourth quarter and fiscal year 2020 earnings call. On the call with me today are Stefano Fasina, 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. 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. We undertake no obligation to update publicly any forward-looking statement 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, and note in particular that these forward-looking statements may be affected by risks relating to the spread and impact of the coronavirus COVID pandemic. 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 good morning, everyone. I am pleased to say that the four quarter earnings we have announced today are at the upper end of the guidance we provided for the quarter. In common with many other businesses, COVID had a material impact on the year, most notably in the second half, and as a consequence, This pulled down our results for the year as a whole. This has been a very difficult time. But, as you would expect, we are proving to be very resilient. We are financially robust, with strong and reliable cash flow, driven in part by our brand and customer loyalty. And this has allowed us to continue to invest in modernizing our company. We are confident we will come out of this in better shape as an organization. There is nothing that should surprise you in what we have reported today. James and Alex will take you through the quarter in detail in a moment and provide our initial thoughts on what you should expect for the year ahead. Clearly, there are still many uncertainties around COVID in terms of the development of the pandemic and how governments worldwide will continue to respond. However, in the last quarter, we have seen signs of improvement in customer trends, and as a result, the decline of our business has notably slowed. In addition, there is clear evidence that as and when a restriction hurries, Customers do come back to us, both physically in-store and through omnichannel. And while some elements of our business may be changed forever, our positioning with the communities we serve remains strong. As we look at our business going forward, we see opportunities as well as risks. And we are making every effort to ensure we are well-placed to maximize the opportunities. It is clear, however, that pharmacy will continue to play an ever greater role in local community healthcare management through testing and, potentially, through vaccinations. For some time, we have talked of our work to accelerate the digitalization of our company. Initially, much of this work was going on behind the scenes, moving to a more cloud-based data structure and putting in place the systems and structures to use this data more effectively. As you will hear from Alex in a moment, the benefits of this work are now becoming more evident with notable improvements to our customer experience at a time when demand for omni-channel solutions has never been greater. Throughout this crisis, the vital role that pharmacy plays for the customers we serve has been comprehensively proven. It is a great tribute to our teams that we have continued to service our pharmacy patients without major disruptions to drug availability or to our high standards of care. Looking forward to 2021 and beyond, we have initiatives underway to further strengthen the bond we have with our customers. whether they choose to interact with us physically or virtually, driving volumes in both pharmacy and retail. There is no doubt that all markets and many businesses will continue to face the negative impacts of COVID in fiscal year 21. And it is expected that the next two quarters will see difficult trading conditions. However, We are optimistic that we will see a market recovery as the year progresses. In our own businesses, we expect to see a significant improvement in our performance in the second half of the year. The work we are doing to address the challenges gives us confidence that we will come out of the year strongly and consistently deliver long-term sustainable growth. I will hand you over to James now to go through the results we have announced today in detail.