Yahoo Finance Live anchors discuss CVS beating out Amazon and UnitedHealth in the bid to acquire Signify Health.

Video Transcript

BRIAN SOZZI: Welcome back. We're a few minutes away from the opening bell. But let's start with a few movers in the premarket here. Julie, let's check in on CVS, which is-- they are plunking down $8 billion to buy home health care company Signify.

Looking at some of the analysts' coverage here. Looks like Wall Street is positive on this deal for CVS. Locking in on Elizabeth Anderson, an analyst at Evercore ISI, saying the deal should be modestly accretive to profits by 2023. Also just looking at-- also saying that this deal makes very strategic sense for CVS. But very competitive bidding process.

JULIE HYMAN: Yes, very competitive bidding process. And seeing another analyst's commentary on that, given the premium paid, according to an analyst at RBC, it seems like there's not going to be any higher bids because that whole bidding process has already happened. And some of the other companies that were talked about and reported on as potential bidders for Signify-- the likes of Amazon, and UnitedHealth, and Option Care Health-- so Signify was a really hot commodity.

Why was it a hot commodity, I guess, is the question. This company helps clients shift to value-based payment plans. So it's just sort of a different paradigm for the health care industry to some extent. It has 10,000 clinicians in all 50 states in the US.

So when we talk about what CVS is getting, this is what CVS is getting. And this is, I believe, CVS's biggest acquisition since it bought Anthem-- so this-- or Aetna.

BRIAN SOZZI: Aetna. Well, that was what I was going to say here. Look, CVS has turned into a beast. This is a company now-- they just ended their most recent quarter with almost $13 billion in cash. Certainly could spend $8 billion to buy this strategic asset. To your point, they also own Aetna.

I'm looking at Walgreens here. What are you doing? Walgreens, were they even involved in this process? But right now, you have a key competitor in CVS Health. Expanding into new areas. Growing its network effect. This is a huge win for them.

JULIE HYMAN: Yeah. I mean, CVS is just-- in terms of it versus its pure play pharmacy competitors, it just has expanded into much more than just a pharmacy chain and just embarked on a totally different strategy, it seems, than many of the others. So I guess that explains the difference between it and Walgreens. And also, maybe it's outperformance of Walgreens--

BRIAN SOZZI: I like CVS.

JULIE HYMAN: --that we see there. You like going-- you like going to CVS?

BRIAN SOZZI: I do. I do like CVS. I like that they've started using more self-checkout machines. I like that. You know, I'm not opposed to, like, talking to cashiers, but I like the process. They've started selling plant-based meat. It's more of a little bit of a mini supermarket. Better than my local 7-Eleven.

I dig it. I mean, I dig it. I dig it.

JULIE HYMAN: I go to Walgreens for one reason only.

BRIAN SOZZI: What's that?

JULIE HYMAN: It's the closest to me.

BRIAN SOZZI: It's the closest.