WOONSOCKET — The U.S. Department of Justice extended the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act waiting period for CVS Health Corp. and Aetna Inc.’s merger review on the eve of the deadline, giving them another 30 days to respond to additional questions from the agency.
On Feb. 1, CVS Health and Aetna each received a request for additional information from the DOJ in its review of the merger agreement between the companies, according to documents CVS filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The waiting period was set to expire at 11:59 p.m. that day.
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“We are reviewing the Second Request and continue to work with the DOJ in connection with its review of the transaction,” said Joseph Goode, director of corporate public relations at CVS Health.
“With a deal of this size, we always expected there would be a second request. In fact, the timetable that we laid out in our initial announcement and S-4 filing reflected this expectation. Overall, things are progressing as planned and we continue to expect that the transaction will close in the second half of 2018,” Goode said.
The new request for information, the details of which were not disclosed, extends the waiting period under the HSR Act until 30 days after both CVS Health and Aetna have substantially complied with the new request, or a time mutually agreed on by the parties and the DOJ, or until the agency terminates the new waiting period.
Goode declined to offer details on the DOJ’s new request.
CVS Health and Aetna have been working with the DOJ since shortly after the announcement of the merger agreement and continue to cooperate with the DOJ staff in its review of the transactions contemplated by the merger agreement, according to the SEC records.
Completion of the deal remains subject to approval and adoption by Aetna shareholders and CVS Health stockholders of the issuance of shares of CVS Health common stock.
CVS Health and Aetna have each scheduled a stockholder or shareholder meeting, as applicable, on March 20, 2018 to seek the respective approvals of their stockholders and shareholders, as applicable.
The extended waiting period should not delay the anticipated completion of the merger in the second half of 2018, CVS Health noted in the filing.
