Reuters May 6, 2019
Hedge funds Corvex Management LP and Sachem
Head Capital Management LP have built stakes in Clayton-based health insurer
Centene Corp. and are exploring challenging its planned $17.3 billion
acquisition of WellCare Health Plans Inc., people familiar with the matter said
on Monday.
The hedge funds believe that Centene may be
able to do more to establish if another company such as Humana Inc. would be
interested in acquiring it, the sources said.
The hedge funds are seeking to take advantage
of the fact that Centene needs to secure approval from its shareholders for the
WellCare deal, according to the sources, who asked not to be identified because
the matter is confidential. There is no certainty that the funds will agitate
against the deal, the sources added.
“We remain as committed to our combination
with WellCare today as we did when we announced it on March 27,” said Marcela
Hawn, Centene’s chief communications officer.
Corvex and Sachem Head declined to comment.
WellCare and Humana did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
It was unclear whether Humana would take an
interest in acquisition of Centene.
When asked during a May 1 earnings conference
call with analysts about his view on Medicaid growth in light of Centene’s
acquisition of Wellcare, Humana’s chief executive, Bruce Broussard, said the
company was “confident in our organic direction,” but that its strategy
involved always looking at the market for M&A possibilities.
No comments:
Post a Comment