Walgreens Boots Alliance (WBA) is now a private company after Sycamore Partners officially completed its purchase of the 124-year-old pharmacy chain. As part of this deal, Walgreens will no longer operate as a vertically integrated business on the Nasdaq (NDAQ). Instead, the company’s various segments — including Walgreens, The Boots Group, Shields Health Solutions, CareCentrix, and VillageMD — will now function as independent, standalone businesses.
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This change comes just days after Walgreens was removed from the S&P 500 index (SPY) and replaced by Interactive Brokers (IBKR). Along with the deal, Staples CEO Mike Motz will take over as Tim Wentworth steps down. It is worth noting that Wentworth had been working on a turnaround strategy that included closing stores and reducing store sizes to help the company compete with e-commerce and delivery services. However, front-of-store sales continued to struggle, even with new health-focused products, while the pharmacy side remained a key source of revenue.
Although Walgreens had made progress in areas like specialty pharmacy, home health, and physician services, those units will now operate separately and no longer directly support Walgreens’ overall financial performance. Interestingly, longtime chairman Stefano Pessina will stay involved after reinvesting all of his family’s shares as part of the deal. With Walgreens stock no longer being traded, current shareholders will receive $11.45 per share, plus up to an additional $3, depending on any future sales of VillageMD.
Is IBKR Stock a Good Buy?
With Walgreens Boots Alliance now gone, we will take a look at its S&P 500 replacement, Interactive Brokers. Turning to Wall Street, analysts have a Strong Buy consensus rating on IBKR stock based on five Buys and one Hold assigned in the past three months, as indicated by the graphic below. Furthermore, the average IBKR price target of $67.92 per share implies 8.1% upside potential.
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