OCR

Target-CVS Agreement: What It Really Means

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Image Source: Mike Mozart Target (TGT) and CVS Health (CVS) announced an agreement June 15 in which CVS would acquire, rebrand, and operate Target’s pharmacies and clinics for the price of approximately $1.9 billion. After the deal closes, CVS will operate 1,660 of Target’s pharmacies in its stores under the CVS/pharmacy brand name. The nearly 80 Target clinics involved in the deal will be rebranded as MinuteClinic, and CVS plans to open up to 20 new clinics in Target stores, part of the CVS/minuteclinic goal to operate 1,500 clinics by 2017. Target and CVS also plan to open five to ten small, flexible store formats that will be branded TargetExpress and include a CVS/pharmacy. After Target’s recent Canada debacle, we … Read more

Valuentum Economic Castleâ„¢ Rating Update

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Read: Keeping the Horse Before the Cart: Valuentum’s Economic Castle™ Rating The Economic Castle Focuses on the Magnitude of Economic Value Creation The Valuentum Economic Castle™ rating is an enhancement of the competitive advantage framework (commonly known as economic moat analysis) that has become widespread and ubiquitous within the investing world. Whereas an economic moat framework evaluates a firm on the basis of the sustainability and durability of its competitive advantages, Valuentum’s Economic Castle™ rating evaluates a firm on the basis of the firm’s future economic profit spread (return on invested capital less its weighted average cost of capital). The companies with the strongest Valuentum Economic Castle™ ratings are poised to generate the most economic value for shareholders in the … Read more

Surveying Fourth Quarter Earnings at Health Care Firms

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The broader equity markets have been under pressure for much of January, and while it may be tempting to consider completely exiting stock investing for a time, we’re staying the course with both of our actively-managed portfolios. We had been expecting a contraction in price-to-earnings (P/E) multiples across the broader market (see our outlook here), and the performance thus far in 2014 has not been surprising. In case you may have missed it, I sent out some very important thoughts over the weekend to keep in mind as uncertainty and volatility increase through the course of 2014: Stay focused on @Valuentum portfolio holdings (best ideas), #asset allocation (cash) in portfolios and #prudence in allocating new capital. — Brian Nelson, CFA … Read more