Rite Aid Corporation

Good morning. My name is Rob, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Rite Aid Corporation third quarter fiscal year 2023 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 followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, again press the star one. Thank you, Myron Purcell, Vice President, Investor Relations, and Treasurer. You may begin your conference.

Thank you, Rob, and good morning, everyone. We welcome you to our fiscal 2023 third quarter earnings conference call. Hayward Donegan, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Matt Schroeder, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, will begin the call with prepared remarks. Andre Persaud, Executive Vice President and Chief Retail Officer, and Chris DuPaul, Chief Operating Officer of Elixir, We'll also join the call during the question and answer session. As we mentioned in our release, we are providing slides related to the material we'll be discussing today. These slides are provided on our website, investors.rideaid.com. While management will not be speaking directly to the slides, these slides are meant to facilitate your review of the company's results and are used as a reference document following the call. Before we start, I'd like to remind you that today's conference call includes certain forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are presented in the context of certain risks and uncertainties that can cause actual results to differ. These risks and uncertainties are described in our press release, in item 1A of our most recent annual report on Form 10-K, and in other documents that we file or furnish to the SEC. Also, we will be using certain non-GAAP measures in our release and accompanying slides. The definition of our non-GAAP measures, along with the reconciliation to the related GAAP measure, are described in our press release and the slides. With that, let me turn the call over to Hayward.

Thanks, Byron. Hey, good morning, everyone, and I just want to thank you for joining us today, and welcome to our third quarter earnings call. The third quarter came in better than consensus on both revenue and adjusted EBITDA, despite the continued challenging macro conditions. There were some clear positives, but I'll give you there's also some challenges, and then for me, I want to share some key takeaways with you. I'll go into more detail on these combined with some discussion on some exciting new initiatives that I believe will set us up for success going forward. But first, a quick review of our third quarter results. Revenue for the quarter was $6.1 billion compared to $6.2 billion in the same quarter last year. The third quarter adjusted EBITDA was $121.9 million, compared to last year's adjusted EBITDA of 154.8 million. In our retail pharmacy business, total revenue decreased 0.5% from the prior year, driven by the expected reductions in COVID vaccines and COVID testing revenue, in addition to the store closures that we've discussed. Results on a same store basis are encouraging. with improved growth rates in all key categories in the third quarter year-over-year. Overall, same-store sales increased 7.5%, with pharmacy sales increasing 9.5%, and front-end sales, when excluding tobacco, grew 2.7%. Total same-store prescriptions increased 4.4%, And when excluding COVID immunizations, prescriptions increased 3.6%. Same store maintenance prescriptions increased 2.1%. And same store acute prescriptions increased 8%. We also improved our overall prescription market share by 20 basis points for same stores, bringing us to over 11% share in the markets in which we operate. This is a testament to the high performance of our front end and pharmacy teams, their customer relationships, and even in this challenging labor market. Demand for flu immunizations and COVID vaccines in the quarter were both weaker than we expected, consistent with trends in the overall industry. The demand for bivalent COVID vaccines has been less than we anticipated, and we expect that weakness will continue into the fourth quarter. However, due to one of the strongest flu seasons we've seen in decades, we expect a longer tail to the flu immunization demand and into the fourth quarter. We expect to finish the fiscal year administering approximately 5.2 million COVID vaccines and 2.7 million flu vaccines. Turning to the front end, We're pleased to post market share gains of 20 basis points in the third quarter. Front-end same-store sales were aided by good results in health, consumable, and the beauty categories, offset by underperformance in alcohol and general murder. Sleep for the quarter was 9 million worse than the prior year's third quarter. We expect shrink to be a continued headwind in the fourth quarter additionally we're seeing signs the consumer is remaining cautious particularly in demand for discretionary seasonal products which has driven increased markdowns however high demand for cough cold and flu products has resulted in higher out of stocks you've probably heard this in the news turning to our pharmacy services business in the third quarter Elixir reported revenues of $1.7 billion compared to $1.9 billion for last year's third quarter. This was primarily due to a planned decrease in Elixir insurance membership and a previously announced PBM client loss on 1-1-22, partly offset by a combination of higher drug spend and utilization. Elixir's third quarter adjusted EBITDA was $40.2 million versus last year's third quarter adjusted EBITDA of $28.9 million due to strong procurement economics as well as a reduction in SG&A expense. Procurement economics refers to contributions from an expanded set of solutions including plan design and administration, formulary and rebate management services network performance management and specialty and mail order pharmacy purchasing these services add economic to our value economic value to our clients and also to elixir as we look ahead to the fourth quarter we expect some of the negative trends that we experienced in our retail business in the third quarter to continue this includes lower pharmacy margins due to drug mix, weaker consumer demand for discretionary items, which will likely result in higher seasonal markdowns, as well as continued higher shrink expense. As a result, we're reducing our adjusted EBITDA guidance to $410 to $440 million for the year, down from $450 to $490 million previously reported. This guidance reduction is concentrated on the retail side of the business. The key takeaway is that while we're seeing good script and front-end sales growth in our retail business and strong operational results at Elixir, we remain challenged by retail margin pressures. We took pride in the way we mobilize to continue to serve our communities during COVID. Now that the pressures of the pandemic are easing, we're working to bring that same call to action, that same agility, and strong execution back to driving growth and performance in the core business. The core drivers of growth include script growth with a focus on adherence, smaller format store launches, digital engagement, growing our loyalty membership, and driving increased own brand penetration. We are also laser focused on the long-term growth of our PBM membership, with development of a strong pipeline for the 2024 selling season that is already underway. At the same time, we will continue to reduce costs and free up cash. We are focused on adherence with our courtesy refill program. 1.2 million new customers have enrolled in our program since June. As a result, we're seeing a 1% increase in adherence scores for our Medicare Book of Business. The value we're seeing from these adherence initiatives reinforces the growth potential with our current customers. Also, we have a central fill facility that currently serves over 800 stores. This facility helps us dispense a higher volume of maintenance medications outside of stores, thus freeing up our in-store team for increased script growth and the delivery of enhanced clinical services. We're planning to expand our central fill capabilities to service the remainders of our stores in the coming year. We're introducing technology and innovation to streamline core non-dispensing tasks such as inventory management, automating customer prescription transfer requests, and taking non-pharmacist calls out of the stores. We're bolstering our centralized pharmacy teams to include additional clinical support for customers through our medication therapy management program, or MTM as we call it. So our in-store pharmacists will always be available to counsel and support our customers. That's crucial. But growing a centralized pharmacy team allows for additional touch points with our customers. And by growing our MTM program, we'll increase the number of medication interventions that focus on preventing or reducing drug-related risks, increasing customer knowledge about over-the-counter and prescribed medications, and supporting good habits to become or stay adherent to drug regimens. That's crucial to good health and preventing hospitalizations. And finally, this is all the first step of putting a pharmacist in your pocket. a virtual alternative to allowing customers to be able to access our pharmacy teams anywhere and anyhow. We're also upgrading our proprietary pharmacy workflow technology to streamline the user experience for pharmacists and increase operational efficiency. These enhancements include the expansion of remote quality assurance, remote data entry, and problem resolution and centralized support for other prescription filling functions. Additionally, we just launched our first two small format stores in Virginia. We believe these are a great way to expand and complement our footprint and better serve our communities. We have strong momentum in our digital business with sales up 65% year to date over last year and healthy margin contributions as well up over 50% in EBITDA from prior year. Our loyalty program also delivered strong results with 500,000 new members enrolled in the quarter. Rite Aid Rewards members spent 34% more on their front-end basket compared to non-members. We also had 300,000 members create digital accounts in the quarter. Our new own brand portfolio also continued to grow. We've talked about this before. We now are at 64% of our planned new own brand SKUs rolled out into the store year to date. The own brand sales comp growth was 8.1% in Q3 year over year and up 67 basis points in penetration. Not only are our own brands more affordable and higher margins, We believe this growth shows the promise of our new packaging and our new brands that are appealing to our target growth customer. Q3 once again demonstrated the ability of our Elixir business to generate increased EBITDA on a year-over-year basis, despite a significant decrease in lives going into the planned year. The performance was the result of consistent execution of our management plan put in place during Q1 of FY23 to increase our EBITDA margins through improved profitability and strict control over SG&A. We are on track to achieve our elixir guidance of $145 to $155 million for the year. Moving into Q4, we will cycle through significant membership losses on 1-1-23, resulting in a net decrease of 700,000 members. This change in lives is attributed to one large client loss that was previously disclosed and an expected reduction in Elixir Part D membership as a result of bidding above the benchmark in 23 of our 34 regions. We are aggressively working to adapt our cost structure to the lower life count, and we'll provide more details when we issue guidance for FY24. We are taking action to improve and accelerate our performance and business execution across Rite Aid. While we're gaining real traction on many of our strategic initiatives, we recognize that we have to do more and faster. That's why we've launched a new performance acceleration program. We've already mobilized and trained over 400 associates on this new approach to fast-tracking initiatives that will improve business discipline and drive outcomes that increase growth and profitability. We will approach these initiatives with a focus on prioritizing our limited capacity and capital and we will closely measure and track execution to build needed internal capabilities and processes. While it's still early days, we have already identified hundreds of opportunities and initiatives that will improve sales and script volume, expand our operating margins, and free up cash. We see real potential for this to drive performance through FY24 and beyond, and we will share further details and expectations during our next earnings call. To close, we're encouraged by our strong script growth, our increasing front-end sales comps, and solid ELIXIR results. We're focused on the acceleration of initiatives that will propel the growth of our business going forward. We're leveraging a new model to identify and manage initiatives positively impacting our operating results. We're committed to creating long-term value for our shareholders as we execute on our performance acceleration initiative and grow our modern pharmacy business. With that, I'll turn things over to Matt.

Thanks, Hayward, and good morning, everyone. As we have said previously, paying down debt, maintaining strong liquidity, and effectively managing our capital structure are top priorities for the company. During and just following the quarter, we completed two transactions to help us achieve these objectives. In October, we completed a securitization of approximately $170 million of our 2022 CMS receivable, which represents the amount of the receivable that accumulated between January 1 and June 30 of 2022. This transaction preserves available borrowings under our revolving credit facility and was done at a rate similar to the rate that we incur on our revolver borrowings. We expect to securitize the remainder of the 2022 CMS receivable before the end of our fiscal year. In November, we launched an additional tender offer focused on our 2025 bonds. Through this transaction, we paid down over $165 million of our 2025 bonds at a discount and lowered our overall debt outstanding by approximately $40 million. This also brings an additional benefit of interest savings as we are replacing these bond borrowings with revolver borrowings, which have a lower interest rate. In order to partially mitigate the impact of the tender offer on liquidity, we expanded our ABL revolver from $2.8 billion to $2.85 billion and increased the Philo term loan from $350 million to $400 million. These expansions added $100 million of availability in total under our senior secured credit facility. We have lowered the amount of outstanding debt on our 2025 bonds, which is our nearest debt maturity, from $600 million at the beginning of the year to $320 million after the completion of our latest tender offer. We had over $1.3 billion in liquidity at the end of the third quarter and expect that number to improve at fiscal year end as we reduce our seasonal build of inventory and complete the remainder of the calendar 2022 CMS receivable securitization. Now I'll review our third quarter results in more detail. Revenues for the quarter were down $145.5 million, or 2.3% from prior year's third quarter, driven by a decline in COVID testing and vaccine revenue, the impact of store closures, and lower membership at Elixir. Third quarter net loss was $67.1 million, or $1.23 per share, compared to last year's third quarter net loss of $36.1 million, or 67 cents per share. The increase in net loss in the current quarter is due primarily to a decrease in adjusted EBITDA, an increase in interest expense, and an increase in restructuring charges. These items are partially offset by a reduction in facility exit and impairment charges. Now we'll discuss the key drivers of operating results in our business segments. Retail pharmacy segment revenue for the quarter was $4.4 billion, which was $20.3 million lower than last year's third quarter, driven by the decrease in COVID-related revenue in store closures, partially offset by an increase in both maintenance and acute prescriptions. Retail pharmacy segment same-store sales increased 7.5%, with increases in front-end same-store sales, excluding tobacco, of 2.7%, and in same-store pharmacy sales of 9.5%. We administered 1.9 million COVID vaccines in the third quarter of fiscal 2023, compared to 4 million in last year's third quarter. We also cycled a reduction in PCR testing demand from 1.2 million last year to 68,000 this year, offset somewhat by the impact of increased antigen testing sales. Outside of COVID vaccine impact, Maintenance scripts were up 2.1% and acutes were up 8%. Third quarter retail pharmacy segment adjusted EBITDA was $81.7 million or 1.9% of revenues compared to last year's third quarter adjusted EBITDA of $125.9 million or 2.8% of revenue. The decrease in adjusted EBITDA and EBITDA margin is attributed to lower COVID vaccinations and testing and higher shrink results. partially offset by increased non-COVID prescription volumes and reduced SG&A. Retail pharmacy segment adjusted EBITDA SG&A expense was $81.2 million, or 173 basis points better as a percent of revenue than the prior year third quarter due to load of payroll, occupancy, and other operating expenses driven by store closures and our cost reduction initiatives. We are on target to achieve the $190 million in SG&A savings in FY23. Shifting to our pharmacy services segment, Elixir, in the third quarter, Elixir saw revenues decrease $132 million, or 7.1%, to $1.73 billion, due primarily to a planned decrease in Elixir insurance membership and a previously announced client loss, partially offset by increased utilization of higher-cost drugs. Elixir's third quarter adjusted EBITDA was $40.2 million, or 2.3% of revenues, versus last year's third quarter adjusted EBITDA of $28.9 million, or 1.6% of revenues. The current quarter benefited from increased gross profit resulting from procurement economics and network performance management, as well as a reduction in SG&A expense, partially offset by the decline in revenues associated with lost clients. Turning to our cash flows and balance sheet, our cash flow statement for the quarter shows a source of cash from operating activities of $132.6 million, driven by the sale of the first part of the 2022 CMS receivable. Cash used by investing activities was $40 million for the quarter, included in investing activities were script file sales attributed to our store closings and sale leaseback proceeds. Our net debt balance was approximately $3.1 billion at the end of the quarter, as we continue to build the spring CMS receivable and seasonal inventory in our regional business. We expect our leverage ratio to be around six times by the end of the fiscal year and to generate positive free cash flow for the year. Now let's turn to guidance. While we saw good top line results in our retail business, we are seeing greater than expected pressures on retail margins. Pharmacy margins are expected to be lower than previously forecast, due to our actual mix of generic suspense having lower sales values than planned. In addition, our front-end margins will continue to be pressured by cautious consumer demand and the related impact on seasonal markdowns and higher than forecast shrink. Based on these factors, we are lowering our adjusted EBITDA guidance for the year. Adjusted EBITDA in the retail pharmacy segment is expected to be between $265 and $285 million. Adjustee Vedad Elixir is expected to be between $145 and $155 million. We expect the procurement economic improvements in SG&A trends that we saw in Q3 to continue through the remainder of the fiscal year, partially offsetting the reduction in lives that will occur on January 1. Total revenues are expected to be between $23.7 billion and $24 billion. Adjusted net loss per share is expected to be between $2.18 and $1.78 per share. Capital expenditures are expected to be approximately $225 million. We continue to make investments to grow our business, including pursuing prescription file purchases and investments in digital. We also continue to seek to enhance our efficiency by automating our supply chain and transforming our processes and technologies at Elixir. Interest expense is projected to be $220 million and reflects the impact of the latest round of rate increases announced last week. We expect to generate positive free cash flow to continue to pay down debt. This completes our prepared remarks. Rob, could you please open the phone lines for questions?

At this time, I would like to remind everyone, in order to ask a question, press star, then the number one on your telephone keypad. Your first question comes from a line of Elizabeth Anderson from Evercore ISI. Your line is open.

Hey, guys. Thanks so much for the question. Maybe I just apologize if I missed this while you were talking. In terms of the $190 million in savings for the quarter, can you just sort of talk us through where you are on that, sort of where the future pockets of opportunity are and how we sort of think about that exiting the FY23? Sure.

Yeah. Hey, Elizabeth, how you doing? It's Hayward. And I'll let Matt answer. This is largely complete. Matt, you want to just update on that savings target?

Yes. Thanks, Hayward. Good morning, Elizabeth. Yeah, we are on our way, certainly, to hitting our target of $190 million in SG&A savings for the year. And I think you saw a pretty sizable savings number year over year in the third quarter of this year in both the retail business but also in the and manage through the reduction in lives. As we think about next year, still a lot of work to do on building out our plans for 2024. But we'll continue to look at opportunities to close stores. We'll continue to look at opportunities to rationalize our labor. And we've got a lot of opportunities around getting more efficient on procurement and indirect procurement. that are coming out of some of the work, you know, the initiative work we're doing that Hayward described. So, you know, more to come, but certainly, you know, looking at further cost reductions, you know, in 2024.

Yeah, I think with the emphasis, Elizabeth, being on elixir because of the lives lost, that will have to be addressed. So that's the main, that and procurement are really the main opportunities for next year.

Got it. No, that makes sense. And it looks like, at least on sort of my math here, that your core profitability was much closer to sort of like 1Q levels in terms of dollar contribution versus last quarter. But I just wanted to check that I had two things right. On the OTC test, when you said the antigen tests were increasing, did you mean sequentially or on a year-over-year basis?

They're increasing on a year-over-year basis, but they're also a little bit up sequentially as well, particularly in the last couple weeks of the quarter and really in the first couple weeks of the fourth quarter as well.

Okay, got it. And then flu vaccines, you would say 3Q over 3Q or about flat?

Flat, yeah.

Okay, perfect. Got it. That's super helpful.

Yeah, I think as we think about the fourth quarter, Elizabeth, what we're kind of seeing from a flu vaccine standpoint is anticipating a slightly better than prior year fourth quarter, but not dramatically so.

Got it. No, that makes a ton of sense. Thank you for the additional color. That's very helpful.

Thanks, Alyssa. Your next question comes from the line of George Hill from Deutsche Bank. Your line is open.

Good morning, guys. Thanks for taking the question. I guess, Matt, on the change in the guidance in the pharmacy services segment, you talked about the mix of generic dispensed as being part of the issue and kind of pharmacy margin pressure. I'm just wondering if you can disaggregate that a little bit. And I guess I'm wondering if you can kind of bucket into what are we seeing it from reimbursement from payers? How much of it is lower margin in the mix? I'll kind of pause there and then come back.

Yeah, thanks, George. So with regards to the pharmacy margin, you know, headwinds that we're looking at and really the piece that drove, you know, a component of the guidance change, what we've seen is an increase in generic dispensing, which is positive for us. That's a good thing. But the mix of drugs that we've dispensed in that kind of generic mix has resulted in a lower recovery rate than what we previously modeled. So it's mixed. It's not actual rate changes from our PBM partners. We don't expect this mixed issue to persist in the next year.

Okay, that's super helpful. And then my follow-up question on that is you guys talked about procurement. I guess can we delve a little bit more into that? Are we talking about the procurement of drug products in particular, or are we talking about front-end products? I'm wondering if you can kind of bucket what are the opportunities for savings and procurement?

Yeah, I think we use procurement in a couple different ways. So in reference to Elixir, it's really a combination of both drug purchasing especially, but also network management, rebate management, and just kind of managing the best, better managing the spread between what we kind of get in in various contracts and what goes to clients, while at the same time, of course, being very competitive in the market and with our clients. On the retail side, a lot of opportunity that we see into next year around procurement for indirect. So think of that as like not for resale, non-payroll SG&A spend. And with an addressable spend volume that we have about $1.3 billion on the retail side, there's a lot of opportunity for improvement there.

Okay, that's helpful. If you'll humor me with two more quick ones. Are the shortages of amoxicillin and Tamiflu meaningful? And then are the sale-leaseback proceeds that you guys called out, is that just an earnings contribution, a cash contribution, or both?

I would say, let me start by saying... Go ahead, Matt.

No, go ahead, Hamer, please. Sorry.

We really aren't having any significant experience issues with the amoxicillin or the Tamiflu, although you could probably hear... This morning, a number of people talking about that there certainly are some pocketed challenges. I think for us, the bigger issue is the over-the-counter drug supply chain issues. And then, Matt, you can answer the second question.

Yeah, so, George, the sale-leaseback proceeds that we're referring to are a cash benefit. They have nothing to do with – there's a small gain on assets. It's non-EBITDA. That's part of that. But the main benefit is the cash benefit, and the proceeds we had for sale-leasebacks This quarter was about $10 million.

Your next question comes from the line of Lisa Gill from JP Morgan. Your line is open.

Thanks very much. Good morning. Matt, if I can start with just a couple of numbers questions. So one, when I think about fiscal 23 and the current guidance, can you talk about how much you have in there for COVID in general? I mean, every quarter we've talked about numbers and we talk about the swing factors of those numbers, but As we sit here today, can you give us a total number? I'm just trying to think of what the core business looks like as we think about 24 would be my first question.

So Lisa, we have, I think as we said in the script, we have about 5.2 million in COVID vaccines kind of modeled out for the year. That's the biggest, by far the biggest COVID factor. PCR tests have really fallen off to almost a negligible number. And then on antigen tests, we've seen a level of advantagement test, you know, disbursement, as we talked about, that's, you know, a little bit higher than last quarter. Those are really kind of main factors.

And so if I think about that, right, so think about the $5.2 million at roughly $15-ish EBITDA, is that still the right number to think about when we think about the COVID vaccinations? And again, it may carry forward into 2024, but I'm just trying to think about the core business.

Yeah, we've been using $20 million as a proxy for EBITDA for the COVID vaccines. I think that's the right number to use.

And then as I think about the fourth quarter and I think about the $30 million swing factor, you know, you talked about a number of things, you know, whether you talked about the mix of generics. I think that you talked about the shortage on the over-the-counter side. Is there anything that you can help us? I mean, we're already in December, right? So you only have a couple of months left, right? Is there anything you can point out when we think about the swing factor on either end? Or, you know, is it kind of a midpoint that you're more comfortable with? Any color would be helpful as we think about modeling the fourth quarter.

Yeah, Lisa. I mean, we try to pick a guidance range every quarter that really is an estimate of a low and high end of the, you know, the most likely possible outcomes. And that's what we've tried to do in the, you know, in the 410 to the 440 range. You know, as far as like what could swing the number around, I think what could swing the number, you know, to the high end of the range and to the good way is, you know, if we continue to see, you know, strong flu prescriptions, if COVID and flu vaccines, you know, are a little bit, you know, heavier than what we thought, and a lot will depend too on how we do on the front end in the Christmas season with OTC. But if we continue to see like pretty strong demand on OTC and flu, then you're probably looking at something that's a little bit on the higher end. something that gets you probably to the lower end are COVID and flu vaccine demand dropping off, you know, so flu shot. And then certainly markdowns, you know, and shrink continue to be things that we're looking very hard at from the standpoint of the front-end business. You know, and those are probably the swing factors. If things go bad in those areas, it would get you more toward the lower end.

And then I guess my last question just would be kind of a longer term. Hey, this would be more for you, I guess. As we think about your comments on the PBM membership, and the potential positive for 2024. Really two questions there. One, can you maybe size the RFP opportunity that you see for 1-1-24? And then secondly, do you see any mid-year start opportunities in calendar 23?

Well, first I'd say that it's so early and right now we're selling into 1-1-24. There are always some mid-year opportunities. I wouldn't consider them at this stage big enough to you know swing things one way or the other the big business the bigger business and the bulk of the business is going to be one one but we are launching our laker laker software as a service business we just hired a new sales leader there we are also deep into the mid-market business the public sector business and we're showing um you know a significant amount of interest from the national practice leaders who We had almost every pharmacy business national practice leader come visit us at our collaboration center a few months ago. And to a person, I would say very, very interested in supporting Elixir as a credible alternative in our target markets. But we have a big road to climb here. We have a big hill to climb because of this loss of this one client and the Elixir insurance business. Which, you know, we had planned for that, but so SG&A is goal one, is to get the SG&A right sized at the same time so that we can impact next year. And then at the same time, really both maximizing our margin opportunities and our procurement economics alongside of really trying to get that sales season to be this year's sales season on a sequential basis.

And if I could just squeeze one in, just as you're talking about that, so the 700,000 lives that will move off your platform for January 1st to 23, will you lose any of your leverage or purchasing power for the PBM? And then secondly, should we think about that as being kind of normal margins on those lives, or is there anything else that we should take into account as we're thinking about that? And I know I'm asking a lot of questions, trying to figure out 24 without you wanting to give 24, but we just want to start to think about how to model some of this.

Okay, so Chris DePaul, why don't you answer that?

Yes, look, as we go into 24, those lives are split between the large client loss and the Elixir Insurance Book of Business, and we run those two parts of the business through different sets of paper. We're continuing to push through on the changes that we've made and how we handle our rebates and our rebate economics. And we've been very pleased with what that has done for the business this year in terms of our ability to be competitive. We consistently are finding ourselves, you know, when we get into finalist meetings with a very competitive and compelling offer on the table. we expect that position to continue into next year. So I don't expect those lives to impact our ability to be competitive and to win business and continue to show improvement in our sales performance. But as Hayward mentioned, we do have an overall set of economics that we have to manage in the business to make sure that we're right-sizing our operations to match the life count that we have.

That's very helpful. Thank you.

Your next question comes from the line of William Reuter from Bank of America. Your line is open.

Hi, good morning. I recognize you probably don't want to say much here, but Hayward, in your prepared remarks, there were some pretty optimistic commentary about hundreds of opportunities to improve sales and scripts and operating margins in fiscal year 24. Is it possible that Kibita could actually be up next year despite a couple of these pretty large headwinds?

Well, obviously we can't comment on next year because it is too early and obviously we're not releasing guidance. All I can say is that we are facing headwinds, as you know, every year. And every year we have to fill those gaps. And we did a very good job this year on a number of initiatives to fill both EBITDA cash gaps and reimbursement rate gaps whether it's a combination of growth which we're now seeing nicely and sgna reductions and cash cash and debt actions so matt you know i'll let you jump in that's you know our our goal now is to double the number of initiatives and what that leads to from a next year point of view is tbd matt anything else you want to add no nothing else to add bill it's too early for us to be you know

kind of putting a line in the sand on what EBITDA is going to be directionally. To Haver's point, our job is to use this initiative process to work to do what we can on the headwinds more to come when we give guidance.

Yeah, I was expecting an answer to something like that. Okay. And then, Matt, you did bring up the opportunity to potentially close more stores. Is there any sense you can give us of what the negative EBITDA is of those stores which are not profitable at this point?

Yeah, it's not a number we've put out there to disclose, Bill. I think what I would tell you is there is an opportunity to close more stores. It's not nearly the size of the opportunity that we had this year, so it's on a much smaller scale because we have done a pretty good job in the latest last store closure program of really pruning a lot of the unprofitable stores, or at least the unprofitable even with leases in, drain in out of the fleet. So It'll be smaller than this year, more to come as we go through.

Yeah, this is no longer our key focus. We've done what we needed to do. Everything else is either a large lease, long-term lease that you don't want to vacate for dead rent, or these are stores that are on the bubble where if you can continue to see some of this growth that we are showing now, you could turn these stores into something profitable. That would be our primary goal.

Okay, and then just lastly for me, it's been pretty well publicized, the challenges of shrink. I was wondering whether you've been able to make any recent changes that could lead to shrink actually declining on a year-over-year basis over the next year.

Andre, can you comment on that?

Yes, thanks, Avery. Good morning. You know, what I would share first and foremost as we think about shrink, The safety of our associates and our customers is prioritized in how we manage this, and similar to others, we have seen a rise. It's organized crime-driven, and to answer your question of what we're doing, we continue to be very, very involved working with our organized retail crime team with local law enforcement and government to address. We continue to have a range of product protection services

opportunities in our stores and that's how we're managing it at this point in time great that's all for me thank you your next question comes from the line of carla casella from jp morgan your line is open hi thank you um on the cme cms receivable sale that was nice to see in the quarter um do you still expect to do about 450 to 500 million for the full year

Hey, Carla. Thanks for the question. Yeah, probably more like $450,000 for the full year. So the build in the second half of the year is greater than what it is in the first half of the year. So we've got a pretty sizable receivable that's going to build through December that we'll be looking to securitize here before the end of the fiscal.

And any change in terms as you look at that?

Only change in term is that it's no change in terms. It's tied to SOFR, so the interest is a little higher than it was last year, you know, consistent with overall market conditions, but no change in terms other than that.

Okay, great. And then on your overall script count, can we just get an estimate of kind of where it stands today? I think at year end it was $170 million on an equivalent basis.

That's directionally correct. That's directionally correct on the non-30-day adjusted. So this is not adjusting for 30-day equivalents.

Okay. And then I'm just curious, so with the changes and the cost cuts you're talking about at Elixir, how integrated are Rite Aid and Elixir at this point? I mean, where does this overlap in terms of is there a shared overhead, warehousing, or how do they interact on a customer basis?

Yeah, so we did a significant amount of integration between Elixir and Rite Aid over the last three years. That was the first initial big body of work that we undertook. So all of the corporate functions like HR and finance and legal and compliance all roll up into one leader within the Rite Aid enterprise. Regarding mail order and specialty procurement, we leverage the company-wide procurement arm to purchase those prescriptions, which is part of how we get such good economics. And then, of course, Elixir in and of itself is undergoing a significant integration between the two PBM businesses that they have, and we call that Project Fusion. And that project, which will be complete over the next couple of years and is well underway, is going to release additional synergies, economics, process improvements, and savings. So consider those kind of the two big bodies of work. And I'm not sure if that answers your question fully.

Oh, no, that's great. And then as you cut costs there, are there other assets closures and asset sales that we could look to for central proceeds as you're cutting costs as well, or is it pretty much just an overhead analysis? Chris, do you want to answer that?

Yeah, I guess one piece of color I would put on it is when you look at the performance of Elixir across the course of this year, it would be It would be misleading to say that it is entirely overhead and cost-cutting. We certainly have done significant work throughout the year to streamline operations, to take out SD&A, and to right-size according to the losses that we had coming in to this calendar year. And we'll do those same types of actions as we go into next year to adjust the business. The performance that you're seeing in Elixir from Q1 through Q4 is more heavily driven by the changes we've made in the overall operations and performance of the business, the procurement economics that were referenced earlier. And that's why you see the EBITDA margins climbing throughout the year, and it's why you see the EBITDA performance stacking up so well over prior year. It's not... because we just ripped all the costs out of the business. It has much more to do with we're doing a better job operating the PBM, and that delivers better value to our clients, and it delivers better value to our shareholders.

And, Carla, what I would add is... Sorry.

The only thing I would add, Carla, because I think part of what you're asking is about monetizing assets, really... You think about what we have at Elixir between the mail order facility, between the specialty farming business and the Laker adjudication platform. Those are all assets that really help us compete in the business and are very valuable to us. So when I would think about assets to monetize for cash in the overall enterprise view, it's really more on sale leasebacks and any file sales we would do when we close the store.

Okay, great. Thank you.

And we have time for one more question. Your final question comes from a line of Peru Martinson from Jefferies. Your line is open.

Good morning. So when we look at that 700,000 life loss here at the start of the new year, what is Elixir going to be standing at and kind of what's the opportunity to get part of those lives back in terms of lives served?

Chris? Yeah, so as we move into 1.1 of this year, right now we are coming in roughly around 2.3 million, so we're forecasting the 700,000 life loss, and so you can do the math there. As we look forward, where I think we have the opportunity to gain that back, is you have to look at both sides of the business. You've got to look at the PBM side. in terms of our our pbm services and as hayward mentioned we're actively building our pipeline we're looking forward to the upcoming selling season you know this past year was very much a rebuilding year for us um we went into the season with a relatively new commercial team and we had several gaps in critical areas including sales and underwriting so as we move into the 2024 selling season We've filled many of those gaps, and we've also matured as a team. And so we're entering this year, I think, as a stronger and more sophisticated organization. And so when we look at how we're going to go to market, we're spending a lot of time with the top consultants, but we're also creating sort of a clear roadmap for our sales function with a set of key milestones across the next year to significantly increase the lives at the top of the funnel. Because if we look If we look back on the prior year, we think that's one area where we really have the opportunity to grow lives and to bring more opportunities from our target markets into the top of the funnel. When you move on to the elixir insurance side of this, which is a significant portion, we've been very consistent over the last several earnings calls that the individual Part D market, which we participate in, It's a very challenging market to be in as a standalone plan. And so we've been very consciously managing the economics of that and making choices around how we manage that. And that's why you've seen the decline, the steady decline in lives. On the flip side of that, we also participate on the EGWIP side. In contrast, we see the EGWP side of Part D as a much more attractive segment for us, both in terms of the margin and economics that are available, but also in terms of our position and our right to win there relative to large integrated health plans, because our interest is clean and clear in managing the EGWP benefit. And so, you know, I think what you'll see over time is, you know, we'll work to rebuild um the pbm services side focusing in our target markets and then i think on the elixir insurance side you know we'll gradually over time continue to make that shift from the you know the individual market to the to the egg whip and uh supporting medicare advantage clients okay um last quarter of shrink was i believe like a five million dollar headwind you know

What was it this quarter and what are your expectations for fourth quarter?

Matt? It was a $9 million increase quarter over quarter for third quarter. We haven't given a specific number for fourth quarter, but certainly one of the components of us guiding down versus where we were last quarter is we do expect to continue to shrink headwinds.

So year-to-date was $9 million or third quarter was $9 million?

Third quarter was $9 million. Third quarter was $9 million.

Okay. And then just lastly, there's been a lot of news of settlements with CVS, Walmart, Walgreens on the opioid front. Where are we today on that and what are our expectations?

Yes. So we have settled out three states, critical states, West Virginia, Ohio, and New York for nominal settlements. numbers. So we're pleased with that. We were not a part of the global settlement agreement that CVS, Walgreens, and Walmart participated in. We were not invited to be a participant in that. I think they were going where the money is. And yet it's a framework now for global settlements for other companies like us, smaller companies. And we do anticipate that we will be a part of a next round of global settlements. When that is, we have no idea and how much we couldn't even comment.

All right, then. Thank you very much. Appreciate it.

I will now turn the call back over to Ms. Hayward-Donigan for some closing remarks.

Thank you so much. Okay, thanks for the questions. And I just want to close by thanking all of our teams for the work that they've done in this quarter. particularly the pharmacists and technicians across our organizations the service associates and store managers in the store who have kept our customers happy and and you can you can tell they're happy because we're taking share and growing the business but more importantly helping our customers achieve whole health for life especially in these times of Any kind of sickness seems to be raging in this environment right now, not just COVID and flu. So we want to protect our people, our teams, our customers, their children, their parents, and their pets each and every day. I would also like to congratulate the Elixir team for executing against an aggressive plan. And lastly, I want to thank our corporate associates who have shown incredible agility and ingenuity and identify and managing these new initiatives and the past initiatives, but more importantly, these hundreds of new initiatives for our future growth, for our shareholders, for our customers, and for our teams. Thank you for joining us today, and I wish you all a really happy and healthy holiday season.

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.