Fitch's Ratings on Express Scripts and Caremark Remain Unchanged.CHICAGO -- In light of CVS' revised offer to merge with Caremark Rx, Fitch Ratings Fitch Ratings An international rating agency for financial institutions, insurance companies, and corporate, sovereign, and municipal debt. Fitch Ratings has headquarters in New York and London and is wholly owned by FIMALAC of Paris. continues to rate the following: Express Scripts' (ESRX) --Issuer Default Rating (IDR IDR In currencies, this is the abbreviation for the Indonesian Rupiah. Notes: The currency market, also known as the Foreign Exchange market, is the largest financial market in the world, with a daily average volume of over US $1 trillion. ) 'BBB'; --Unsecured bank credit facility 'BBB'; --Rating Watch Negative. Caremark Rx's (CMX CMX Corel Presentation Exchange (file extension) CMX Cisco Mobile Exchange CMX Cloaca Maxima (sewage system of ancient Rome; Finnish rock band) CMX Crisis Management Exercise ) --Issuer Default Rating (IDR) 'BBB'; --Unsecured bank credit facility 'BBB'; --Ratings Watch Evolving. CVS (1) (Concurrent Versions System) A version control system for Unix that was initially developed as a series of shell scripts in the mid-1980s. CVS maintains the changes between one source code version and another and stores all the changes in one file. has added a $2 per share special dividend (approximately $850 million) and a 150 million share repurchase Share Repurchase A program by which a company buys back its own shares from the marketplace, reducing the number of outstanding shares. This is usually an indication that the company's management thinks the shares are undervalued. program (estimated to be $4.8 billion) to its $21 billion 'all stock' offer to merge with Caremark Rx. Express Scripts' offer to acquire Caremark Rx at approximately $25 billion (half stock/half cash) remains unchanged. Since Caremark Rx's board rejected Express Scripts' offer, ESRX launched an exchange offer to acquire CMX. The exchange is contingent on shareholder approval from both companies and regulatory approval from the Federal Trade Commission. If ESRX succeeds in acquiring CMX, the transaction could result in a significant increase in leverage, which Fitch views as a potential negative for ESRX's and CMX's credit ratings. Therefore, a Negative Rating Watch for Express Scripts continues to be appropriate. However, if CVS is successful in merging with CMX, the potential transaction could be a positive for CMX credit rating. Given the uncertainty regarding which transaction, if any, will occur and potentially diverging effects on CMX's credit ratings, an Evolving Rating Watch remains appropriate for CMX. Fitch's rating definitions and the terms of use Terms of Use are rules set up by the owner of an intellectual property or service to govern how they may be legally used. In many cases, terms of service are used as a contractual agreement between a company and users of a service they provide. of such ratings are available on the agency's public site, www.fitchratings.com. Published ratings, criteria and methodologies are available from this site, at all times. Fitch's code of conduct, confidentiality, conflicts of interest, affiliate firewall, compliance and other relevant policies and procedures Policies and Procedures are a set of documents that describe an organization's policies for operation and the procedures necessary to fulfill the policies. They are often initiated because of some external requirement, such as environmental compliance or other governmental are also available from the 'Code of Conduct' section of this site. |
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