...NEW YORK (Standard & Poor's) June 15, 2015--Standard & Poor's Ratings Services noted today CVS Health Corp.'s (###+/Stable/A-2) announcement that it entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Target Corp.'s pharmacy and clinic businesses for approximately $1.9 billion. In our view, the transaction will allow CVS to expand its pharmacy network and strengthen its retail presence in new markets, while driving incremental sales and prescription volumes. Through the transaction, CVS will acquire Target's more than 1,600 pharmacies across 47 states and nearly 80 clinic locations. After the transaction closes, CVS will rebrand the acquired pharmacies and clinic locations and will operate them through a store-within-a-store format. CVS plans to finance the acquisition with issuance of incremental debt. Pro forma for this transaction, and incorporating the company's planned debt increase to finance the recently announced acquisition of Omnicare, we project debt leverage increasing to about 3.2x...
