For the second time in as many months, Walgreens Boots Alliance has sold off shares in Pennsylvania-based AmerisourceBergen, this time getting $1 billion that it says it will use, in part, to fund the VillageMD purchase of Summit Health-CityMD.

Deerfield-based Walgreens said in a statement Thursday night that it has sold common stock publicly for about $800 million and that AmerisourceBergen repurchased about $200 million of Walgreens’ holdings in the company.

The latest sale reduced Walgreens’ ownership of AmerisourceBergen common stock from about 20% to about 17%, Walgreens said in its statement.

Walgreens also sold $2 billion of the company’s stock in early November, and it sold 6 million shares at $150 each in May, according to a statement, raising $900 million. The latest sell-off brings the total funds raised this year to nearly $4 billion.

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Walgreens held 52.9 million shares in AmerisourceBergen, a 25.5% stake, as of Aug. 2, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Walgreens said Thursday it would use the proceeds to both pay down debt and fund strategic priorities, including its definitive agreement for VillageMD to acquire Summit Health-CityMD for $9 billion.

Walgreens also said that the stock sales do not change the strategic partnership it has had with the drug wholesaler since 2013. 

Walgreens’ international Chief Operating Officer Ornella Barra will continue to serve on AmerisourceBergen’s board of directors, the statement said.

This story first appeared in Crain’s Chicago Business.