CVS Health Corp. expects to complete its $69 billion acquisition of health insurance firm Aetna after the Thanksgiving holiday. The pharma retail/healthcare company had previously anticipated the deal to close before the holiday.
According to its Tuesday’s regulatory filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, CVS has already received approvals of 26 out of the 28 state departments of insurance, and is in "the final stages" of approval processes with the remaining two states for the acquisition.
The Department of Justice had given the preliminary nod in October to the CVS-Aetna deal, after CVS reached an agreement to sell off its Medicare Part D plan business to WellCare Health Plans. The divestiture was apparently a crucial step for CVS in preventing a ‘merger’ of its own Medicare segment with Aetna’s Medicare Part D plans, and therefore to ease regulatory concerns about a potential increase in monopolistic power in the Medicare sector due to CVS's acquisition of Aetna.