McKesson Corp. (NYSE:MCK) (0.1%) (MCK – $186.65 – NYSE) is one of the three largest drug wholesalers in the world and has been expanding aggressively outside the U.S. through the acquisition of Celesio and several other European companies. McKesson recently announced an innovative divestiture of its information technology businesses; it will merge it with privately owned Change Healthcare and the combined company will go public next year. In its core wholesaling business, the company has stabilized its performance after several contract losses, recently signing a large new contract with Walmart. McKesson retains a balanced capital return policy that invests first in its core business but then returns a significant amount of cash to shareholders via dividends and share repurchases, which has helped the company post superior long term growth and returns.
From the Gabelli ABC Merger Arbitrage Fund second quarter 2016 shareholder letter.
