Alliance Boots Plc, Britain's biggest pharmacy chain, reported a 7.4 percent rise in its underlying annual profit on Wednesday and said it expected its good trading performance to continue in the current year.
Underlying trading profit rose to 641 million pounds ($1.3 billion) on a pro forma basis for the year to end-March, compared with an analyst forecast range of 615 million to 640 million provided by the company.
Alliance Boots, created from the merger of drug store chain Boots and drugs wholesaler Alliance Unichem in July 2006, agreed last month to a take-over by private equity firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and its deputy chairman and biggest shareholder Stefano Pessina in an 11.1 billion-pound deal.
"We have delivered a strong financial performance while executing one of the biggest mergers undertaken in the UK," Chief Executive Richard Baker said in the results statement.
"Across the group we have seen the positive impact of our pre-merger planning, our new working relationships and our dedicated people all contributing to the good results," he added. KKR defeated rival Terra Firma in the battle for Alliance Boots with a 1,139 pence per share bid to set up the first private equity take-over of a FTSE 100 company and Europe's biggest leveraged buyout.
Alliance Boots has around 3,000 retail outlets, including some 2,600 UK pharmacies, health and beauty stores and optician practices, as well as operating 380 distribution centres across Europe.
The company said it had made good progress in delivering more than 20 million pounds in merger cost savings and said it was on track to acheive annual pretax cost savings of at least 100 million pounds in the fourth full year after completion.
CEO Baker told a conference call the take-over was expected to be completed "some time in July". The company said that UK like-for-like revenue increased by 2.9 percent in the year, and Baker told reporters that "remains a pretty steady position where we are today".
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