CVS Health, one of the largest health and pharmaceutical services groups in the United States, with a market capitalization of nearly $117 billion (€104.552 billion), has announced its plan to split into two independent publicly traded companies, which for now will be called CVS Health and CVS Pharmacy.
The future CVS Health will focus on comprehensive healthcare solutions and will integrate the businesses of Aetna, CVS Caremark, CVS Specialty, Oak Street Health and Signify Health. For its part, CVS Pharmacy will group around 9,000 CVS pharmacies, the mail-order pharmacy service, MinuteClinic centers, and the Health100 technology services business.
Following the transaction, David Joyner, the current chairman and CEO of CVS Health, will take on the role of president and CEO of the healthcare solutions company. In turn, Prem Shah, today chairman of the CVS Health Group, will become the CEO of CVS Pharmacy.
Until the spin-off takes place, scheduled for the first half of 2028, CVS Health will maintain its current operations, will continue to compete in the same segments, and will continue serving its customers as it does today, while also meeting the financial targets set.
Once the separation is completed, which will be designed so that it does not involve tax costs for either CVS Health or its shareholders, the current owners of the company’s securities will become shareholders in both resulting companies.
The company expects the two firms to have a strong investment-grade credit rating at the time of the spin-off and that each will have the financial strength and free cash flow needed to allocate resources to its specific strategic priorities and to reward investors with an attractive dividend.
"From a position of strength and with a long-term vision, we plan to create two specialized companies to improve consumer engagement, affordability and coordination of care," David Joyner has said.