On March 8th, Cigna announced it will buy Express Scripts, giving ESRX shareholders a combination of cash and CI stock. The deal, expected to close before year-end, will represent the 10th buy-out of a Pawleys Growth Fund holding at a significant premium for our investors. This is a stunning accomplishment, given that we typically hold a concentrated portfolio of only 20-25 different stocks, and just launched in 2010. We have a systematic process which strives to identify stock of companies with little or no debt, good earnings growth, and rock-solid cash flow. We never take a position in the hopes that it will be bought-out, it just happens that our methodology has identified stocks that others deem to be very valuable. The initial Cigna offer represented a 31% premium for ESRX shareholders.
Recently there have been a few landmark anti-trust cases that have gone in favor of corporations merging with or acquiring other companies. For example, the U.S. District Court in Washington court approved without any provisions the AT&T buy-out of Time Warner. A vertical merger occurs when two companies within the same industry but at different places along the supply chain come together, meaning they do not compete with each other and thus would not create a monopoly. This is a positive sign that the pending buy-out of Express Scripts by Cigna will be completed, since they are both healthcare companies but perform different functions. On July 12th, CNBC reported that the Department of Justice will not challenge the planned merger of CVS and Aetna, yet another positive sign for the ESRX/CI deal. Since ESRX continues to trade at a discount to the offer, we feel the market believes the deal will not go through. The market may also be worried about competition created by AMZN’s announced acquisition of PillPack. We recognize these risks but continue to add to our position of ESRX because we believe the stock remains undervalued independent of the pending CI acquisition. We are confident in our methodology of buying stock of companies with little or no debt, good earnings growth and rock-solid cash-flow. The landscape is ripe for additional mergers and acquisitions to occur, so we may see more activity with the Pawleys Growth Fund holdings going forward.

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