CVS Wishes To Expand Pharmacy Business By Acquiring Omnicare

CVS Health Corp is all set to secure a purchase deal worth at $10.1 billion to acquire Omnicare Inc.

CVS Health Corp, the operator for drugstore stated recently that the company is all set to spend around $10.1 billion in order to buy Omnicare Inc. the company is known for supplying prescription along with medicines for the nursing department, health care facilities and assisted living.

This initiative by the company makes it the second largest drugstore operator in United States. The company has the access to the older United States population and works on modifying the specialty pharmacy. The purpose of this is to provide drugs that are suffering from chronic diseases whose treatment is relatively expensive.

CVS expects that this deal will help them in adding almost 20 cents to the adjusted earnings per share (EPS) in the fiscal year of 2016. The deal also comprises of a debt of almost 42.3 billion reported the firm.

The health care sector has been currently consolidating while firms have worked on bargaining for competitive prices along with beefing up the drug manufacturing process along with the three largest drug distributors situated in United States.

"There's a lot of purchasing scale. There's a lot more volume. They could renegotiate their supply contracts given the volume," said Steven Halper the analyst at FBR.

Apart from the sales of the mail order and drugstore chain, CVS also has the honor of being the second largest benefits manager in the US. This allows them to secure pricings for government plans and big employers.

CVS has currently offered $98 for each share of Omnicare. This shows that a premium of 4% is visible on the closing price. Omnicare is a reliable name in the health care sector that offers pharmacy related services to the elderly masses.

The company seeks to expand its pharmacy business with this deal and according to Reuters this offer is around 21 percent premium to Omnicare when they closed on April 21. It is a day before when Bloomberg mentioned that Omnicare is exploring a sale in the market. Furthermore, the shares of Omnicare in the market jumped to $96, an increase by 1.5 percent was noticed whereas CVS Health Corp shares rose 2.8 percent to $104.08. It was Bloomberg who broke the news regarding CVS’ plans to buy Omnicare in the coming times.

Apart from this, CVS has secured a financing deal from Barclays for about $13 billion. It is believed that all pharmaceutical companies are looking for purchases and mergers to bolster their portfolios regardless of the industry they are in.

Ford Motors (F) Reported First Quarter Earnings for Fiscal Year 2015

Ford Motors Co. reported its 1QFY15 earnings of 23 cents per share on $31.8 billion of revenue.

Ford Motor reported its quarterly earnings for fiscal year 2015 on Tuesday April28. The company was not able to meet revenue and earnings expectation of analysts, as it was not able to sell many vehicles in North America because of the F-150 pickup truck roll out and continuously lost money in Europe and South America.

The world’s second-biggest automaker company reported earnings of $0.23 per share compared to previous year earnings of $0.25 per share. The company reported $31.8 billion in revenue less than $33.9 billion in the prior year quarter. This was Ford’s twenty-third profitable quarters in a row.

Ford President and CEO, Mark Fields said in a statement, “The first quarter was a good start to a year in which our results will grow progressively stronger as the new products we have been launching start to pay o. We are re-confirming that 2015 will be a breakthrough year for Ford as we continue accelerating our One Ford plan, delivering product excellence and driving innovation in every part of the business in a way that benefits all of our stakeholders.”

The company reported $924 million in net income equals to 23 cents per share, down $65 million or 1 cent compared to the similar quarter last year.

Wall Street has expected Ford Motors to post quarterly earnings of $0.26 per share on $33.9 billion of revenue, as per the consensus forecasts by Thomson Reuters.

However, the company upheld its whole year projection of pre-tax income in the range of $8.5 billion to $9.5 billion. Ford improved its projection to 8.5% to 9.5% for North American operating margin.

Earlier last week, the company announced that it will discharge around 700 workers from its Detroit production plants. The Michigan plant in Wayne, which manufactures compact hybrid and compact cars, will be cutting a whole shift. Ford said the step is due to decreasing demand for hybrid cars among weak gas prices.

Strengthening US dollar is wiping out the majority of companies revenue during the first 3 months if 2015. Last week, quarterly earnings were reported by General Motors, who failed to meet earnings estimate including a loss of $1.8 billion in revenue earned from international sales.

The share price of Ford went down by 1.07% to $15.73 during the pre-market session following the announcement of quarterly results.

Apple Inc Earnings For 2QFY15

The iPhone makers reported an exceptional quarter earnings from the significant sales in China.

Apple Inc (AAPL) has been doing wonders in the tech world with the extraordinary sales of the iPhone that it reported in its quarterly report presented on April 27, 2015. The tech company was seen to have recorded an exceptionally high revenue increment in the quarter which was due to the strong sales of the new iPhone that was carried out in the previous fall. The kind of sales that the firm has been experiencing is one of its kinds.

In the much awaited quarter report, Apple Inc declared that it sold a massive $61.2 million items of the smartphone in a period of three months which the analysts believe is a number to be reckoned with. These sales have arisen by a huge 40% as compared to the previous year’s same quarter. One of the main reasons for such a rise in the sales was due the successful penetration that the company managed to do in China which was marked as one of the biggest achievements of the iPhone makers.

The revenue for Apple Inc came around $59 billion for the three months quarter with the earnings per share rising up to $2.33, as per a report by WSJ. According to the average selling price, in which the iPhone were sold and bought at, the price tag of $659 showed an increment of $60 if compared to the price the smartphones were previously sold at. In an interview, Tim Cook, who is the CEO of the Silicon Valley based company, told the WSJ that this time around, the company has experienced an unusual growth of customers switching from other phones to Apple phones which has been marked as another jewel in the firm’s crown.

The gross margin that was received by Apple in the quarterly results came around with a rise of 40.8% which was higher than the expected margin of 38.5%. Previously, the software company had decided to return around $130 billion to shareholders in the form of dividend but an increase was recorded in that department as well, as by March 2017, the firm has planned to return $200 billion to its shareholders.

The company has also managed to raise the cash revenue to $193.5 billion which totaled around only $178 billion by the end of the previous quarter.

IBM First Quarter Results beat earnings estimate but missed revenue target

IBM released its 1QFY15 results on Monday after market close and reported earnings per share of $2.91 and $19.6 billion in revenue falling short of analysts’ estimate of $19.7 billion.

International Business Machines reported its first quarter of fiscal year 2015 earnings on Monday April 20 at market close. It was a diverse quarter despite exchange rate volatility.

Analysts predicted IBM to post adjusted earnings per share of around $2.82 on $19.7 billion sales. Earnings of the company increased by 9% on a year over year basis and stood at $2.91 each share from $2.68 in a period earlier. Without including the impact of currency exchange and divestment business segments, IBM revenue was stable at $19.6 billion, decreased by 12%.

The strengthening US dollar was the biggest problem with the company; however currency impact surpassed every estimate and update that the company delivered to its shareholders. Lastly, business division sales cut the revenue of IBM by almost 4% while exchange rate volatility caused slowdown by 8%.

As reported by Thomson Reuters, Wall Street had forecasted the company to report quarterly earnings of $2.80 per share on revenue of $19.64 billion, the results were the 8th time in the last nine quarters that big blue company failed to meet analysts’ expectations. Adjusted sales of IBM rose by 2% on the Y-o-Y basis in United States but plunged by 2% internationally.

The Technology Company gross margin increased by$49.3% from the previous year 48.5%. Operating margin of the company surged by 18.4% compared to 15.8% last year.

International Business Machines restated its future guidance for the fiscal year of earnings of $16.12 per share.

Ginni Rometty, CEO of IBM said in a statement, "We had a strong start to the year. Our strategic imperatives growth rate accelerated, demonstrating the power of our offerings in these new opportunities and contributing to improved revenue performance. Our focus on higher value through portfolio transformation and investment in key areas of the business drove continued margin expansion."

Twenty-three covered IBM stock, out of which two have given Buy rating while one gave it strong buy rating. While 16 analysts assigned hold rating to the stock.

At market close on Monday April 20, IBM stock was up by 3.42% to $166.16 and went further up by 0.20% during after hour trading and reached $166.50 at 07:59 PM EDT.

General Electric Company (NYSE:GE) first quarter 2015 Earnings preview

GE is scheduled to report its first quarter 2015 results on Friday April 17 morning.

General Electric Company is all set to report its quarter covering from January to December earnings on Friday, April 17. Results are normally disclosed in the morning at 06:30 a.m. EST along with a conference call. Earnings of General Electric are every so often seen as an indicator of the overall health of United States and international economy. Hence, the company has all the potential to impact wider markets, including currencies, index futures and various other indicators of the market, mainly if the outcomes are way out of consensus expectations.

The current estimate by Street regarding adjusted earnings per share is in the range of $0.29 to $0.31 (reported by Yahoo! Finance). Estimates were cut by almost 5 cents earlier this year. Analysts forecasted a revenue growth of 0.5% on a year over year basis in the range of $33.46 billion to $35.22 billion. The company has abstained itself from providing guidance in recent prior quarters. General Electric last issued its earnings forecast in the year 2008.

The company’s current stock yields at 3.3% in contrast to average 3.1% in last five years. The price to earnings ratio stands at 18.3 times as compared to average 16.4 times in last 5 years.

Analysts believe that GE will report earnings of 30 cents per share, and revenue of $34.47 billion. The primary reports suggest that the company was in contact to sell its real estate assets of up to $30billion was the kind of news investors might not want to take place quickly. Well, the company has announced the departure of the majority of its capital assets that will house enormous buybacks of approximately $50 billion, high dividends and emphasize on the only industrial conglomerate.

General Electric inclines to surpassed analysts estimation by 1 cent with the share price reacting positively to stronger reports. Assumed the stock is previously up on expected payouts due to the capital deal, investors perhaps want to see company surpassing the analyst estimation by posting earnings of $0.33 per share on $34.55 billion of revenue to generate a much of a favorable response.

General Electric stock 0.97% down to $27.46 at market close on Wednesday. The Schenectady based company has 52 week low and high of $23.41 and $28.68, respectively.