CVS Shareholders Approve Caremark Buyout; Calpers Opposes Deal

CVS Corp. shareholders approved their company's offer to buy Caremark by a margin of more than 9-to-1 at a special shareholder meeting in Woonsocket, Rhode Island yesterday. Now all that's left for the deal to go through is for Caremark shareholders to vote in approval later today.Calpers has come out against the proposed CVS-Caremark merger, voting against the deal with more than 2.1 million Caremark shares and more than 3.1 million CVS shares. According to Clover Capital Management's Matt Kaufler, "The odds are in favor of Caremark shareholders approving the CVS deal. Caremark investors will be focused more seriously on the fact that Express Scripts doesn't have antitrust clearance and CVS does." Caremark shares rose $1.67, or 2.73%, to 62.75; CVS shares rose $1.03, or 3.19%, $33.34.

Sources: Reuters, MarketWatch, Bloomberg,
Commentary: Express Scripts Says Current Caremark Bid is 'Best and Only Offer' • Don't Expect Express Scripts to Bow Out of Caremark Rx Bidding • Is CVS' Bid the Fix Caremark Investors Need?
Stocks/ETFs to watch: Caremark Rx, Inc. (CMX), CVS Corp. (CVS). Competitors: Express Scripts, Inc. (ESRX), Medco Health Solutions Inc. (MHS), UnitedHealth Group Inc. (UNH), Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (WMT). ETFs: iShares Dow Jones US Healthcare Provider (IHF), Retail HOLDRs (RTH)

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[Mr. Finance:]

CVS/Caremark Discussions Led by Leadership



At the helm of the CVS and Caremark discussions were the Chairmen of these two companies. Caremark Chairman and CEO Edwin Crawford and CVS Chairman and CEO Terrence Murray have both sat on the Board of Directors of FleetBoston for a number of years, along with Murray’s fellow CVS Board Member Marian Heard. While these were likely to be the primary 3 people involved in these discussions, there are also many other people who could have helped to influence the outcome of the deal. Below is the Knowledge Map depicting the key relationships between the two entities:

fn.intellectspace.com/...



Knowledge Maps are automatically generated by IntellectSpace’s Knowledge Mapping technologies.

2007 Mar 16 11:48 AM