The Firm recently represented the underwriters, led by Barclays Capital Inc., Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC, Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Incorporated and J.P. Morgan Securities LLC, in connection with the public offering by CVS Health Corporation (“CVS Health”) of $40 billion of senior notes. The offering is the third-largest corporate bond sale on record. CVS Health intends to use the net proceeds from the offering to fund a portion of the purchase price of its acquisition of Aetna Inc., one of the nation’s leading diversified health care benefits companies.
The notes consisted of $1 billion of floating rate notes due 2020, $1 billion of floating rate notes due 2021, $2 billion of 3.125% senior notes due 2020, $3 billion of 3.35% senior notes due 2021, $6 billion of 3.7% senior notes due 2023, $5 billion of 4.1% senior notes due 2025, $9 billion of 4.3% senior notes due 2028, $5 billion of 4.78% senior notes due 2038 and $8 billion of 5.05% senior notes due 2048.
CVS Health is a pharmacy innovation company with more than 9,800 retail locations and more than 1,100 walk-in medical clinics, a leading pharmacy benefits manager with more than 94 million plan members, a dedicated senior pharmacy care business serving more than one million patients per year, expanding specialty pharmacy services, and a leading stand-alone Medicare Part D prescription drug plan.
The Simpson Thacher team for the transaction included Roxane Reardon, Ryan Bekkerus, Jo Djekovic, Robert Meyer and Christine Turner (Capital Markets); Jonathan Cantor and John Torrenti (Tax); Noah Leibowitz (Intellectual Property); Michael Isby (Environmental); Jeanne Annarumma and Patricia Adams (ECEB); and Jennie Getsin (FINRA/Blue Sky).