: Rite Aid’s stock soars 7.5% premarket after company posts narrower-than-expected loss and revenue beat

Rite Aid Corp.’s stock RAD rose 7.5% in premarket trade Thursday, after the drug store chain posted a narrower-than-expected loss for its fiscal first quarter and better-than-expected revenue. The Philadelphia-based company posted a net loss of $306.7 million, or $5.56 a share, for the quarter to June 3, wider than the loss of $110.2 million, or $2.03 a share, posted in the year-earlier period. The wider loss was mostly due to a goodwill impairment charge at the company’s Elixir pharmacy benefit management business. The company’s adjusted per-share loss came to 73 cents, narrower than the FactSet consensus for a loss of $1.50. Revenue edged down to $5.653 billion from $6.015 billion, but was also ahead of the $5.324 billion FactSet consensus. “Our first quarter results were driven by strong script growth, solid pharmacy margins and early progress with our turnaround program, which offset underperformance on front-end sales in the Retail Pharmacy Segment and a higher-than-expected medical loss ratio at Elixir Insurance,” said Elizabeth “Busy” Burr, interim chief executive officer. The company is now planning to cut SG&A and capex costs for the rest of the year. Rite Aid is now expecting fiscal 2024 loss per share of $4.29 to $4.78 and revenue of $22.6 billion to $23.0 billion. FactSet is expecting a loss of $4.79 and revenue of $22.3 billion. The stock has fallen 20% this week, hurt by a report from Bloomberg last week that it’s in talks to restructure $2.9 billion of debt. The stock has fallen 54% in the year to date, while the S&P 500 SPX has gained 14%.

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