Walgreens is pinning its recovery hopes on cost-containment and expansion of its health care services, further indication that what many observers see as a lackluster customer experience in the front of its U.S. stores won’t be changing much.
Some analysts also saw the departure of CEO Rosalind Brewer in September as a sign that retail would take a back seat in the company’s turnaround; she has been replaced by Tim Wentworth, a former CEO of Express Scripts, the pharmacy benefit manager acquired by health insurance giant Cigna in 2018. At Cigna, he also led health services business Evernorth.