CVS Health (NYSE: CVS) has undergone a strategic shift of late to focus more on health care services, as well as home-based health care services. Now, it appears it could be on the brink of a showdown with an activist investor.
CVS Health leaders reportedly met with Glenview Capital – the rumored activist investor – on Monday to discuss ways to “improve operations,” according to The Wall Street Journal.
Year over year, CVS stock is down close to 10%. Year to date, however, the retail giant’s stock is down over 20%.
The company also announced Monday that it would be laying off 2,900 workers, with most of those being corporate positions.
In the wake of COVID-19, CVS Health began to switch its business strategy, as did its peer, Walgreens Boots Alliance (Nasdaq: WBA).
Both companies decided to dive further into health care services, partly because of the success they had as vaccine administrators during the pandemic. CVS Health acquired the primary care provider Oak Street Health last year, as well as the home-focused value-based care platform Signify Health. In total, those acquisitions cost CVS $18 billion.
Those businesses help make up CVS Health’s health care services arm, which is dubbed CVS Healthspire.
On its most recent earnings call, CVS President and CEO Karen Lynch reaffirmed commitment to that segment moving forward.
“We are committed to delivering value every day to our clients and our members,” Lynch said. “In our health care delivery business, we are driving meaningful progress connecting patients to health services across all of our channels, primary and acute care, health services in the home, and clinical programs.”
CVS Health also owns Aetna, one of the largest insurers in the country. Aetna President Brian Kane was removed from his post last month, after less than a year on the job.
As of Monday, it wasn’t clear what Glenview Capital would be urging CVS Health to do moving forward. The company is a New York-based hedge fund.
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