Stat of the Week: CVS’s 10.9x EBITDA

Stat of the Week: CVS’s 10.9x EBITDA

If you can’t beat ’em, buy ’em. Or be bought. That’s the path Aetna (NYSE: AET) is taking, perhaps, as the healthcare industry reacts to news that the health insurer is in talks with CVS Health Corp. (NYSE: CVS) to be acquired for $200 per share, approximately $66 billion. The deal may never be consummated, but it’s gotten a lot of analysts weighing in on the paradigm shift it would bring to the industry. Frank Morgan of RBC Capital Markets gave the nod to vertical integration between managed care organizations, pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) and providers, given that the managed care companies’ push for horizontal integration in 2013 ended badly... Read More »

Managed Care Mega-Deals Not Too Big to Fail

2015 is about to lose even more of its M&A luster, it seems. Some $91 billion is about to disappear from the record-setting spending on healthcare M&A, thanks to the potential unraveling of two managed care mega-mergers. Bloomberg is reporting that the U.S. Department of Justice plans to file lawsuits seeking to halt the mergers of Aetna (NYSE: AET) and Humana (NYSE: HUM) for $37 billion, and Anthem (NYSE: ANTM) with Cigna (NYSE: CI), for $54.2 billion. For healthcare M&A wonks, 2015 set new records in deal volume, with more than 1,500 deals, and deal value, at $397 billion. The dollar total would have been even higher, at $564 billion, if Pfizer (NYSE: PFE) hadn’t walked... Read More »

Health Care M&A Exploded in July

The fireworks didn’t end on the Fourth of July, at least for the health care M&A market. Preliminary data shows deal volume rose 16% to 121 deals, compared with June’s 104 deals. Thanks to the mega-deals among health insurers and generic drug makers, deal value was approximately $166.6 billion, up 883% over June’s $16.9 billion. A full report will be published in the August issue of Health Care M&A News. Top 5 Health Care M&A Deals in July 2015 AcquirerTargetPrice Anthem, Inc. Cigna Corporation$54.2 billion Teva PharmaceuticalsAllergan Generics$40.5 billion AetnaHumana Inc. $37.0 billion Celgene CorporationReceptos, Inc. $7.2 billion Centene CorporationHealth Net, Inc. $6.8... Read More »

Health Care Insurer Mergers: Who Got the Best Deal?

You’ve heard the prices, now here are the multiples. After hours of teasing about a definitive agreement, Anthem, Inc. (NYSE: ANTM) finally reached an agreement to acquire Cigna Corp. (NYSE: CI) for $54.2 billion. That works out to 1.5x price/revenue and 13.9x price/EBITDA. The deal followed Aetna’s (NYSE: AET) $37 billion acquisition of Humana Inc. (NYSE: HUM), which gives us a multiple of 0.7x price/revenue and 13.7x price/EBITDA. Cigna is more “administrative services only” versus “full risk” insurance. ASO is lower revenue, but higher margin business than is full risk, which helps explain the P/R difference between the two deals. The much smaller combo... Read More »