沃尔玛并购哈门那：老年人是交易的核心

对医疗行业即将颠覆的预期与恐惧，显然会催生并购——至少从企业的角度看是这样。据《华尔街日报》（Wall Street Journal）报道，全球最大的零售商沃尔玛（Walmart）正在与哈门那（Humana）进行“有关并购的初步谈判”，后者是一家拥有1,400万医保计划会员，2017年收入540亿美元的医疗保险公司。这笔收购一旦成功，影响力将超越去年CVS与安泰（Aetna）的合并。

西·穆克吉对这一事件的进展做了妙趣横生的阐述，我同事波利娜·马里诺娃今天早上在《财富》Term Sheet上的轰动分析也值得一读。不过要强调的是，这次看似出格的并购之举，存在一个人口统计学上的重要原因：享有医保服务的人实在太多了。

哈门那向证券交易委员会（SEC）提交的最近一份公开文件显示，美国为该公司贡献了79%的保险费和服务收入，其中大部分都是个人和集体的联邦医疗保险优先计划（Medicare Advantage）和其他单独的处方药物计划。哈门那为美国50个州中的每个州提供了至少一种医疗计划。

当然，这点对沃尔玛至关重要：在沃尔玛购物的数百万老年人也会在沃尔玛买药。这家全球最大的雇主之一（仅次于美国国防部和中国人民解放军）也是美国的第四大药房。根据Pembroke Consulting（以及我无所不知的同事菲尔·沃赫拜）的数据，该公司2016年的处方药销售额高达206亿美元。这让沃尔玛成为了比来德爱（Rite Aid）更大的连锁药店。

与CVS类似，沃尔玛一直在积极将基础的医疗诊所并入到门店之中。（哈门那也在朝这个方向发展。根据Modern Healthcare的数据，他们自己的公司与合资企业中拥有近200家诊所。）整合这些资源，就可以让哈门那医疗计划的会员通过沃尔玛的诊所享受基础医疗，通过沃尔玛的药房购买药品，通过沃尔玛的杂货店购买健康水果和蔬菜——其积极意义显而易见。

这就是双方合并的理由。克罗格（Kroger）也会收购该领域的某些公司（或是被收购）。等着瞧吧。（财富中文网）

译者：严匡正 

The prospect and fear of disruption in healthcare is clearly good for marriage—at least the corporate kind. Walmart, the world’s biggest retailer, is in “early-stage acquisition talks” with Humana, a health insurance company with some 14 million members in its medical benefit plans and $54 billion in 2017 revenue, reports the Wall Street Journal—which notably also broke news of the CVS–Aetna deal last year.

Sy Mukherjee has a smart take on this development—and you should also read my colleague Polina Marinova’s breaking analysis in FORTUNE’s Term Sheet this morning. But one thing worth highlighting is how central one key demographic is to this seemingly out-of-the-box M&A move—and that’s the prodigiously sized generation of Medicare recipients.

A whopping 79% of Humana’s total premiums and services revenue comes from Uncle Sam—through individual and group Medicare Advantage plans and other stand-alone prescription drug plans, according to the company’s latest 10-K filing with the SEC (see page 5). Humana offers at least one type of Medicare plan in each of the 50 states.

That same silver-domed demo, of course, is core to Walmart: Millions of seniors not only shop at its stores but also pick up their scrips there, too. The world’s largest employer (after the U.S. Department of Defense and the People’s Liberation Army) also just happens to be the 4th largest operator of pharmacies in the U.S., with $20.6 billion in 2016 prescription drug sales, according to Pembroke Consulting (and my all-knowing colleague Phil Wahba). That makes Walmart-the-drug-chain bigger than Rite Aid.

And like CVS, Walmart has been energetically incorporating primary care clinics in many of its stores too. (That’s a direction Humana had been heading as well: It has nearly 200 clinics that it operates on its own or in joint ventures, according to Modern Healthcare.) The idea of combining these resources—and encouraging Humana plan members to get their primary care through Walmart clinics, get their meds through Walmart pharmacies, and shop in the healthy fruit and veggie aisles at Walmart groceries—makes good, simple sense.

Which is why the race is on. Kroger’s going to buy (or be bought by) somebody in this space. Mark my word.