CHICAGO — Five years after announcing its “plan to win” Walgreen Co. is thriving, executives said at the company’s annual shareholders meeting here earlier this month.

Five years after announcing its “plan to win” Walgreen Co. is thriving, executives said at the company’s annual shareholders meeting here earlier this month.

Speaking to shareholders at the meeting, Walgreens president and chief executive officer Greg Wasson and chief financial officer and president of international operations Wade Miquelon said the drug chain has made significant progress since unveiling the plan in 2009.

"Our ‘plan to win’ was a journey to innovate and reinvent Walgreens for a new era of growth and value creation," Wasson said, noting how the company refocused its efforts away from aggressive expansion and toward innovative retail concepts and strategic acquisitions and partnerships. "All of this culminated in a year of solid progress in fiscal 2013," he said.

Walgreens’ financial results suggest that the strategy is paying dividends. The company closed out fiscal 2013 with $72.2 billion in sales and a 16.3% increase in net earnings. Same-store sales — particularly in the front end — also advanced.

"Our front-end comparable-store sales have improved steadily over the last three quarters, and we have outperformed our largest drug store competitors," Miquelon pointed out to ­shareholders.