CVS to buy Apria’s infusion-treatment unit for $2.1 billion

NEW YORK – CVS Caremark Corp., the largest provider of prescription drugs in the U.S., agreed to buy Coram LLC from Apria Healthcare Group Inc. for about $2.1 billion to add specialty infusion services, its biggest deal in five years.

The acquisition won’t have a material impact on 2014 results and will add adjusted earnings of as much as 5 cents a share in 2015, Woonsocket-based CVS said today in a statement. CVS said the unit will have about $1.4 billion in revenue in the first 12 months after the deal closes.

The purchase will expand CVS, which also operates the second-largest U.S. drugstore chain, into the business of providing therapies such as antibiotics, nutrition and pain medicine through needles or catheters into patients’ veins. Coram, based in Denver, provides such services to more than 20,000 patients a month at 85 locations nationwide.

The deal would be the largest for CVS since the company bought Longs Drug Stores for about $2.8 billion in 2008, beating Walgreen Co. in a bidding contest.

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The acquisition also is the third-largest in the North American drug-retail industry in the past five years, trailing Loblaw Cos.’s agreement to buy Shoppers Drug Mart this year and Walgreen’s purchase of a 45 percent stake in Alliance Boots GmbH last year.

CVS rose 0.7 percent to $66.54 at 9:32 a.m. in New York. The shares gained 37 percent this year through yesterday, outperforming the 26 percent increase in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index while trailing the 61 percent advance of Deerfield, Ill.-based Walgreen.

Apria, a medical-equipment provider owned by Blackstone Group LP, purchased Coram for $350 million in 2007.

Walgreen operates the largest U.S. drugstore chain.

Barclays served as CVS’s financial adviser on the deal, while Sullivan & Cromwell LLP served as legal adviser and Dechert LLP provided legal advice from an antitrust perspective.

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