Evolent Health Inc. saw its share price shoot up Wednesday after Bloomberg reported Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc., the Illinois holding company that owns pharmacy chain Walgreens, is considering a purchase of the Arlington health system consultancy.
The local company, which helps health care providers manage their costs and shift to a population health model, has been under shareholder pressure to think about a sale, Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the matter. Discussions between the companies are ongoing, and it’s not a given whether Walgreens (NASDAQ: WBA) will opt to move forward with an offer, the sources said.
Evolent (NYSE: EVH) stock experienced an 18% jump Wednesday from a low of $27.01 to a high of $31.88 per share. The stock opened Thursday at $29.17 before reaching a high of $31.14 late morning.
An Evolent spokesman said in an email Thursday to the Washington Business Journal that the company doesn’t comment “on speculation and rumors.” We have also reached out to Walgreens and will update this post as we hear back.
The report comes less than two months after Evolent inked a deal to acquire Edison, New Jersey's Vital Decisions LLC for $85 million, slated to close by Nov. 1.
The company announced some other deals at that time, including a partnership with two new providers, Bond Clinic in Florida and Patient Physician Network in Texas, and expanded its work in Texas with another unnamed national payer. Evolent had also signed a deal to provide its New Century Health Performance Suite for cardiology to Molina Healthcare of Ohio.
Less than a year prior, Evolent sold subsidiary True Health New Mexico Inc. to national health plan provider Bright HealthCare. And not long before that, the company sold its stake in Passport Health Plan to Long Beach, California's Molina Healthcare Inc.
Evolent acquired Louisville, Kentucky’s Passport in May 2019 for $70 million and a 30% equity stake. That deal was expected to elevate the local company’s presence in the Kentucky Medicaid market and build on the two organizations’ decadelong partnership. Evolent was then sued over the acquisition in a class-action lawsuit alleging securities law violations.
Evolent separately announced in August 2020 that co-founder and then-CEO Frank Williams would step down and move to the executive chairman role. Williams, another Evolent co-founder and president at that time, assumed the top slot in October.
Evolent generated $222 million in revenue in the second quarter of 2021, up 2.2% from the same quarter of 2020, according to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The company closed the quarter on a net loss of $9.1 million, a major improvement from the net loss of $203.5 million it experienced in the second quarter of 2020. The business had $207.3 million in cash and cash equivalents as of June 30, per its SEC filings.
