One of Connecticut’s major health insurance companies abruptly ended talks to merge with a rival company.
Reuters, citing “two sources familiar with the situation,” reported Bloomfield-based Cigna (NYSE:CI) and Humana (NYSE:HUM), which is headquartered in Louisville, Kentucky, ended their discussion to combine operations when the two companies could not agree on a price for the transaction. Cigna has a current market value of $83 billion and recorded $181 billion in revenue last year, while Humana’s market value is approximately $62 billion and its 2022 revenue was about $93 billion.
The companies previously discussed a merger in 2015, but Humana opted to combine with Aetna, another Connecticut insurance company. But that merger was blocked by a judge citing antitrust concerns. Cigna also faced pushback over antitrust concerns when it unsuccessfully sought a merger with Anthem, now called Elevance Health. Cigna has recently explored the sale of its existing Medicare Advantage business, which could be seen as a strategy to alleviate potential antitrust concerns if a merger with Humana would be pursued.
Cigna also announced plans to do an additional $10 billion in share repurchases, bringing total repurchases to $11.3 billion.
“We believe Cigna’s shares are significantly undervalued and repurchases represent a value-enhancing deployment of capital as we work to support high-quality care, improved affordability, and better health outcomes,” Cigna Chairman and CEO David Cordani said in a statement.
