Signify Health surges as report says UnitedHealth, Amazon among bidders

Option Care Health

22/08/2022 16:21

(Updates)
    ** Signify Health Inc's shares  SGFY.N  jump 36.8% to $29,
hitting their highest since July
    ** UnitedHealth Group Inc  UNH.N , Amazon.com Inc  AMZN.O ,
CVS Health Corp  CVS.N  and Option Care Health Inc  OPCH.O  are
bidding to acquire SGFY, Bloomberg News reported on Sunday,
citing two people with knowledge of the matter  urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL1N2ZX0EH
    ** Amazon and UnitedHealth said they do not comment on
speculation
    ** UnitedHealth has submitted the highest bid, in excess of
$30 a share for the home healthcare provider, with Amazon's
offer close behind - Bloomberg report
    ** Cowen & Co analyst Gary Taylor says UNH and AMZN's
interest in SGFY seems to be centred around the target company's
network of healthcare providers as well as clinical data on
patients
    **  However, Taylor adds that a combination of UNH and SGFY
may face antitrust issues
    ** Brokerage UBS believes AMZN is interested in acquiring
the systems/know-how as well as SGFY's network of doctors and
nurses and leveraging those for new patient populations
    ** UBS says there is retention risk for AMZN given concerns
over whether employed nurses and doctors would want to be owned
by the e-commerce giant
    ** SGFY has more than doubled YTD

 (Reporting by Khushi Mandowara and Amruta Khandekar in
Bengaluru)
 ((Khushi.Mandowara@thomsonreuters.com;))