Potential MAJOR news

[The Voice of Reason]

Aetna is currently rumored to be about to make an offer on Humana

http://www.courant.com/business/hc-bizdigb...0,1045252.story

Aetna

http://www.google.com/finance?q=NYSE%3AAET

35,500 employees

30,950,700 in annual revenues

Humana

http://www.google.com/finance?q=humana

28,900 Employees

28,946,370 in annual revenues

Total combined company.....

64,400 employees

~60 billion in revenues

[drc72]

As long as Aetna stays based in Hartford I'm happy.

[The Voice of Reason]

I don't see how it could be anywhere besides Hartford.

Humana is based in Lousville KY. and has a market capitolization of $4.19 Billion Aetna is $11.02 Billion

The rumored price for Humana is $40 per share (a significant premium on recent closing prices)

The merger would therefore cost 6.754Billion So Humana shareholders could only end up with a maximum of 1/3 ownership if it were a stock only deal. Aetna likely would throw some cash. They had 1.82Billion in cash 3 months ago and if were positioning for a merger could likely have raised more than a billion more. Humana has over 6 billion in cash, so its possible Aetna would throw 3 billion in cash at this merger and do almost a 50/50 stock and cash deal. And the good thing is that the combined company would still have more cash than Aetna has now, so it does not seem like that would be a risk. And Aetna shareholders could retain ~80%

We will see how this works out. I would be very pleased to see Aetna nearly double in size.

[monsoon]

Typical American corporate strategy these days. Instead of investing in the business, they buy back stock to enrich the executives and/or buy another company so that 1000s can be laid off book the savings as increased executive compensation. At one time companies used to invest in the business and their workers to improve what they were selling to companies.

If it happens, be prepared for layoffs in this business.

[The Voice of Reason]

Typical American corporate strategy these days. Instead of investing in the business, they buy back stock to enrich the executives and/or buy another company so that 1000s can be laid off book the savings as increased executive compensation. At one time companies used to invest in the business and their workers to improve what they were selling to companies.

If it happens, be prepared for layoffs in this business.