Exercises second tranche of warrants to buy shares in Rx distributor

DEERFIELD, Ill. — Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc. said on Friday that it had agreed with AmerisourceBergen Corp. to amend the second tranche of warrants held by WBA to purchase AmerisourceBergen common stock to allow immediate exercise of the warrants, giving WBA nearly 24% of AmerisourceBergen’s outstanding equity.

The warrants were originally scheduled to be exercisable in March 2017. WBA then exercised these warrants and purchased 22,696,912 shares of AmerisourceBergen common stock for an aggregate payment of approximately $1.19 billion. The transaction was funded using existing cash on hand.

“Today’s announcement builds on the strong and collaborative working relationship our companies have built together, and further strengthens the long-term strategic relationship we launched in 2013,” said executive vice chairman and chief executive officer Stefano Pessina. “Since the beginning of the strategic relationship, we have worked together with AmerisourceBergen to improve the customer experience by delivering the right products at the right time to ensure that we are able to provide exceptional patient access and care in our U.S. pharmacy operations.”

With today’s exercise of these warrants, WBA now owns 56,854,867 shares of AmerisourceBergen common stock, or 23.9% of AmerisourceBergen’s outstanding equity, based on shares outstanding as of July 31 and adjusted to give effect to the exercise of these warrants.