CVS Health Corp. Outlook Revised To Stable From Positive On Capital Allocation Expectations; 'BBB' Ratings Affirmed

CVS Health Corp. continues to deploy capital to execute on its vision of becoming a leading health company, including its announced acquisition of Signify Health this year. Separately, CVS announced last month it has agreed to pay about $5 billion over the next 10 years beginning in 2023 to substantially resolve all opioid lawsuits by states, political subdivisions and tribal entities. We revised our outlook to stable from positive and affirmed all our ratings on CVS, including our 'BBB' issuer credit rating and issue-level ratings. The stable outlook reflects that with recent earnings and financial policy guidance, we now expect leverage to remain above 3x on an S&P Global Ratings-lease-adjusted basis in the coming one to two years. NEW YORK

...December 13, 2022 - CVS Health Corp. continues to deploy capital to execute on its vision of becoming a leading health company, including its announced acquisition of Signify Health this year. - Separately, CVS announced last month it has agreed to pay about $5 billion over the next 10 years beginning in 2023 to substantially resolve all opioid lawsuits by states, political subdivisions and tribal entities. - We revised our outlook to stable from positive and affirmed all our ratings on CVS, including our '###' issuer credit rating and issue-level ratings. - The stable outlook reflects that with recent earnings and financial policy guidance, we now expect leverage to remain above 3x on an S&P Global Ratings-lease-adjusted basis in the coming one to two years. NEW YORK (S&P Global Ratings) Dec. 13, 2022--S&P Global Ratings today took the rating actions listed above. We believe CVS must balance a conservative approach to capital allocation with continued mergers and acquisitions (M&A) to...

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