James Kehoe : Eric, we think they had a very strong quarter in the second quarter. If you take out the real estate in these onetime, the prior year had some onetime benefits. It was a true-up from the government relating to COVID services that were done. And we had some rental contracts that we negotiated and didn’t pay out last year, and we’re lapping these this year. You look at the UK and they’re up 16% in terms of revenue and lapping at 22%. So I would say any business that can drive teens growth on revenue is an automatic moneymaking machine and this is in context of the UK market that is very, very depressed. So where is this coming from? It’s coming from — if you look back pre-COVID, the UK business has actually gained 200 basis points to 300 basis points of share depending on the category.
So this is — it’s an execution story. And if you look at the top retailers, the top 25 in the UK, together with Aldi and Lidl, Boots is the highest performing retailer in the UK. And that is something, if you’re a premium retailer. So I think we have a strong franchise. So looking forward, will we have as much of a boost in the forward periods? No, because we’re lapping an Omicron period but we see strong revenue growth coming out of the retail business, continued market shares and margin stability. I don’t think we will expand margins in the UK at this point. Looking forward, the UK business is one with the fabulous brand franchise strength and a fairly — probably the #1 player in beauty and personal care in the UK. So — and with an online presence that we’ve ended up with 15% penetration on online, and it was 9% pre-COVID.
So it’s a much stronger company than it was entering COVID and we’re pretty happy with what the future holds. Does that answer your question? Eric?
Eric Percher : That’s perfect. And any…
James Kehoe : Just on the NHS — sorry, I missed your NHS piece. We didn’t see any NHS timing or margin shifts between first half and — sorry, the first half of last year and we don’t expect any negative going forward. However, it is fair to say the flagship business in the UK is our retail business. The pharmacy business is constrained by NHS which sets a limit on overall spending on pharmacy. So the profit pool is not going up. The way we would have to drive profit in the pharmacy business is it’s not a script business that is driving healthcare services. So you try and capture a bigger part of the pool of money that’s available by providing value-added services to the NHS. So that’s the ongoing battle. It’s tough, but our services business is growing far faster the base script business in the UK.
Operator: And your next question comes from the line of Justin Lake from Wolfe Research.
Austin Gerlach : This is Austin on for Justin. Just real quickly turning to kind of the store footprint and this return to normalized operating hours. You guys called out 1,900 kind of incremental stores that you’re still targeting. Wondering kind of underpinned in the full year guide. Like is there an assumption that you guys clear through the rest of those or sort of a target number by year-end to sort of return? And do you feel like the level of investment at this point is adequate there or any need to revisit that?
Rosalind Brewer : Yes. Rick, why don’t you take that?
