92 Years of Payouts, Dividend Aristocrat Status, and a 10-Year Decline. The End of a Dividend Legend

For ninety-two consecutive years it paid a dividend, increased it almost fifty years in a row, and ranked among the elite dividend aristocrats of the S&P 500 index. As recently as 2015, its stock traded above $97, and the company operated over 8,000 drugstores across the United States – a synonym for conservative, dull reliability for millions of retail investors. Yet in ten years the stock lost nearly ninety percent of its value, the company first cut its dividend in half and then eliminated it entirely, and finally it vanished from the stock exchange after being bought by a private equity fund. Walgreens Boots Alliance today no longer exists as a publicly traded company, as if it had been a loss-making enterprise on the brink of bankruptcy from the start, not a dividend aristocrat whose stock was among the safest bets on the market just a decade ago.

Back in 2015, Walgreens Boots Alliance’s stock price exceeded $97, and the company was considered one of the most reliable dividend payers in the US market, with an almost fifty-year history of payout growth. A decade later, the retail chain was bought by private equity firm Sycamore Partners for $11.45 per share – about 88 percent lower. The dividend was completely scrapped, and the company disappeared from the stock exchange.

Walgreens’ collapse ranks among the most dramatic value destructions in the history of American retail. It shows how a conservative, seemingly dull company can turn into a cautionary tale of poor capital allocation, structural industry-wide pressure, and management decisions that together destroyed tens of billions of dollars within a single decade. That is precisely why Walgreens’ case is worth examining in detail, even though the stock is no longer directly investable. The lessons it offers can be applied to a whole range of other companies in defensive sectors that look safe – until their business model starts to decay from the inside.

The Fall of a Dividend Aristocrat

Walgreens paid shareholders a dividend for 92 consecutive years and had raised it without interruption since the mid-1970s, placing it among the elite group of so-called dividend aristocrats – companies in the S&P 500 with at least twenty-five consecutive years of payout growth. In January 2024, that era ended. The board cut the quarterly dividend from $0.48 to $0.25 per share, a 48 percent reduction, and the company was subsequently removed from the dividend aristocrat index. A year later came the second pivotal turn: in January 2025, Walgreens announced a complete suspension of the dividend, ending the payout streak dating back to 1933.