Aaron Alt
Chief Financial Officer at Cardinal Health
Thank you, Jason. This morning, we are reporting our financial results on the new financial reporting segment structure we implemented at the beginning of Q3. To that end, we released an 8-K on April 23rd, which provided the recast historical quarterly results for fiscal year '22, fiscal year '23, and fiscal year '24, through Q2, reflective of the new segmentation for Pharmaceutical and Specialty Solutions, GMPD, and Other.
As we called out at the time, the new segmentation is designed to provide greater transparency, focus, and accountability across our businesses, and we are already seeing those benefits. Overall, Q3 was a strong quarter with double-digit operating earnings growth and 20% EPS growth. We accomplished that growth, while at the same time leaning in and making significant investments of time, expense and capital against our longer-term strategic plan.
With both continued confidence in our strategies and a resilient business and team, we are pleased to once again raise our EPS guidance for fiscal year '24, more on that shortly.
As seen on Slide 4, total company revenue increased 9% to $55 billion, reflecting revenue growth in the Pharmaceutical and Specialty Solutions segment, the GMPD segment, and in all of the businesses making up Other. We were particularly pleased to see the second consecutive quarter of revenue growth in GMPD at 4%.
We are also pleased that gross margin increased 9% to $1.9 billion. While consolidated SG&A also increased just under 9% to $1.3 billion in the quarter, the increased amount reflects technology and other purposeful investments against the future of the business and higher costs to support sales growth. With strong broad-based profit growth, we delivered operating earnings of $666 million, 10% higher than last year.
Moving below the line, interest and other was generally consistent with the prior year at $26 million, and our third quarter effective tax rate of 20.4% was better than we expected due to positive discrete items. As a result of our prior share repurchases, Q3 average diluted shares outstanding were 245 million, 5% lower than a year ago. As I mentioned earlier, the net result for Q3 was EPS of $2.08, reflecting growth of 20%.
Now turning to the segments, beginning with Pharmaceutical and Specialty Solutions on Slide 5. Third quarter revenue increased 9% to $50.7 billion, driven by brand and specialty pharmaceutical sales growth. We continued to see strong pharmaceutical demand across product categories, brand, specialty, consumer health and generics, and from our largest customers.
While we again saw robust demand for GLP-1 medications, recall that we had guided that the revenue growth rate would moderate this quarter, as it did, given the acceleration that we started to realize last year during Q3. Excluding GLP-1 sales, the segment's Q3 revenue growth would be 7%. As we previously noted, these sales did not meaningfully contribute to the bottom line.
Segment profit increased 4% to $580 million in the third quarter, driven by positive generics program performance. Our generics program continued to see both volume growth and consistent market dynamics.
Within our brand and specialty products, demand for COVID-19 vaccines in the quarter was, consistent with our expectations, not a meaningful contributor. As anticipated and guided, lower branded inflation than last year's relative high point was a year-over-year drag on profit growth. So, overall, we were pleased to deliver 4% segment profit growth in Pharmaceutical and Specialty Solutions, solid growth on top of an exceptionally strong quarter a year ago, which grew 23%.
Turning to the GMPD segment on Slide 6. Revenue grew for the second quarter in a row by 4% in Q3 to $3.1 billion. This increase was driven by volume growth from existing customers. The GMPD segment delivered segment profit of $20 million, a $66 million year-over-year increase, driven by an improvement in net inflationary impacts, including our mitigation initiatives. GMPD continued its strong turnaround trajectory, achieving its highest level of quarterly profitability in the last two-and-a-half years.
We continue to be encouraged by the underlying improvements in the business, driven by the team's efforts against the GMPD Improvement Plan. As a reminder, the components of the former Medical Improvement Plan are now split between GMPD and Other, and the plan continues to be on track. The team achieved notable progress on inflation mitigation in the quarter, and we again saw a year-over-year improvement and growth in Cardinal Health brand volumes, providing continued fuel for the business' ongoing turnaround.
Finishing with the businesses that aggregate into Other, as seen on Slide 7. Third quarter revenue increased 14% to $1.2 billion due to growth across all three businesses, at-Home Solutions, Nuclear and Precision Health Solutions, and OptiFreight Logistics. Collectively, the businesses grew segment profit in the quarter by 5%, with OptiFreight Logistics showing particular strength as we worked during the quarter to create the foundations for future profit growth in all of the businesses. Jason will further discuss our excitement around these businesses and some of the recent trends momentarily.
Now, turning to the balance sheet. We ended the quarter with a strong cash position with $3.7 billion of cash and equivalents on the balance sheet. Year-to-date, we've generated $2.1 billion of adjusted free cash flow and have continued to deploy capital according to our disciplined capital allocation framework, including investing approximately $320 million in capex back into the business to drive organic growth and funding the $1.2 billion acquisition of Specialty Networks.
Over the past several years, we've made tremendous progress with our balance sheet. At the end of the quarter, we received a further update to our ratings outlook with Moody's moving our outlook to positive. We issued $1.15 billion in new notes during the quarter to refinance our upcoming June and November debt maturities. We plan to hold the cash proceeds in time deposits until the calendar year 2024 maturities come due.
I'll note, due to the nature of these contracts, only about half of the total cash received is reflected in our Q3 ending cash balance. The remaining $550 million is recorded in prepaid expenses and other on the balance sheet. We have returned over $1 billion total to shareholders year-to-date, which includes approximately $375 million of quarterly dividend payments and $750 million in share repurchases, which is in excess of our committed baseline repurchase of $500 million.
Now, for our updated fiscal '24 guidance on Slide 9. Beginning with the enterprise. We are raising and narrowing our fiscal year '24 non-GAAP EPS guidance. Our new range of $7.30 to $7.40 reflects a midpoint, which is 27% above our fiscal '23 EPS results. We started the year working to deliver our guidance of 14% EPS growth at the midpoint. What a year it has been so far.
Before we turn to the segments, a few comments on our enterprise assumptions. With the year-to-date results, we are improving our fiscal '24 effective tax rate guidance to an updated range of 22% to 23%. And we are reiterating our fiscal '24 expectations for adjusted free cash flow of approximately $2.5 billion, for capex of around $500 million, for diluted shares of approximately 247 million, and for share repurchases of $750 million, which consistent with our framework, does not assume further repurchase activity this year.
Now, turning to the fiscal '24 outlook for our new segment reporting structure, as seen on Slide 10. With another solid quarter from Pharmaceutical and Specialty Solutions, we are raising and narrowing our segment profit guidance for the full year to 8.5% to 9.5% growth, which at the midpoint implies continued mid-single digit profit growth in the fourth quarter. We are reiterating our guide for GMPD segment profit of approximately $65 million for fiscal year '24. We continue to expect to address the impact of inflation as we exit fiscal '24, along with continued Cardinal Health brand volume growth and benefits from our continued cost savings initiatives. Additionally, we anticipate a positive impact from seasonality in Q4 compared to Q3.
We are also reiterating our segment profit guide for the Other businesses, 6% to 8% segment profit growth for the full year, given that we expect a strong Q4 for those businesses. On the top line, we now expect Other full year revenue growth of approximately 12%. So, as I highlighted earlier, we are raising our guidance for fiscal year '24 to $7.30 to $7.40.
Finally, let me conclude my remarks by providing a guidance preview for fiscal year '25. We will provide formal fiscal year '25 guidance during our Q4 and full year earnings call in August. However, with the benefits of our raised fiscal year '24 expectations and the action plans already underway in response to recent market changes, here is our preliminary perspective. For our largest business, Pharmaceutical and Specialty Solutions, while revenue will reset in the year as we offset a recent customer non-renewal, we notably expect to deliver at least 1% segment profit growth in fiscal year '25, before returning to more normalized growth in fiscal year '26.
Looking forward, our commercial and operational teams have been busy, and our value proposition is resonating in the marketplace. Over the past several months, we have had some attractive wins with new customers and some existing customers are expanding their own footprints with us. Some of these are already under contract and ordering and others are scheduled for implementation in the second half of next fiscal year. So, over the course of the upcoming year, we expect new volume coming our way at sustainable margins.
We completed the Specialty Networks acquisition quickly, which will be additive to our efforts in fiscal year '25. Separately, we have turned a further eye to optimizing our cost structure across our corporate functional footprint and across the Pharmaceutical and Specialty Solutions portfolio. Regarding environmental factors, we are expecting brand inflation to be roughly equivalent to fiscal '24 levels, while we remain watchful relative to the contribution of COVID-19 vaccines.
For the GMPD segment, we expect continued growth in fiscal year '25 on our path to approximately $300 million in segment profit by fiscal year '26, driven by the annualization of inflation mitigation, progress with Cardinal Health brand growth, and continued simplification and cost optimization. We expect approximately $175 million in GMPD segment profit in fiscal year '25. And for the businesses included in Other, we expect the strong demand we've seen across these businesses to continue. With positive industry trends and the strength of our competitive positioning, we expect collective segment profit growth in fiscal year '25 at the top end of our long-term target, approximately 10%.
During fiscal '25, we will be investing across all of our businesses, with key examples being new facilities like our Consumer Health Logistics Center, at-Home Solutions facilities in Texas and South Carolina, and further geographic reach of our Nuclear and Precision Health Solutions' PET Network. We will also continue our build-out of Navista and investments in GMPD supply chain resiliency.
Now, a few call-outs below the line and with the balance sheet. We anticipate a significant step-up in interest and other next year, primarily due to much lower average cash balances due to cash already deployed for Specialty Networks and due to the one-time unwinding of negative net working capital from the large contract non-renewal. We also expect lower short-term investment rates on cash and higher interest rates on debt resulting from the refinancing of our calendar 2024 maturities, leading to an interest and other range of $160 million to $190 million in fiscal year '25.
We expect our fiscal year '25 effective tax rate to be in the range of 23% to 24%, slightly higher year-over-year due to discrete favorability seen this year. Partially offsetting these impacts, we would expect a lower share count between 244 million and 245 million due to the $500 million of baseline share repurchases we've previously outlined.
Finally, while we continue to expect to generate adjusted free cash flow of approximately $2 billion on average from fiscal 2024 to 2026, we think it is important to call out that fiscal 2025 will be lower than that average, primarily due to the large contract unwind, as well as quarter-end day-of-week timing. These dynamics will significantly influence our cash flow in Q1 of next year. However, our strong investment grade balance sheet positions us well to manage through these fluctuations.
With respect to the long-term, it is full speed ahead. We are reiterating our fiscal year '24 through '26 targets for the enterprise and segments and expect to deliver at least $7.50 of non-GAAP EPS in fiscal year '25, which reflects at least 30% total EPS growth on a two-year basis.
With that, I will turn it back over to Jason.