Hoag Gets New Fund-Raiser; TriZetto Working With Sun
Well, it’s official now.
Bergen Brunswig Corp., the longtime wholesale drug distributor based in Orange, has wafted into the corporate vapors. In its place is AmeriSourceBergen Corp., a company with around $36 billion in annual sales.
AmeriSourceBergen began its life at the end of last month, after shareholders of Bergen Brunswig and Ameri-Source Health Corp. rubber-stamped the entities’ $3.2 billion merger. The vote came shortly after the Federal Trade Commission ended its review of the deal.
AmeriSourceBergen trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol of ABC, replacing AAS and BBC, the former companies’ symbols. AmeriSourceBergen, as befits a new company, also has a new Web site, complete with a flash introduction featuring a little boy with a toy rocket, a man surrounded by tablets and capsules, another man doing a handstand and a night scene of a road.
Orange County lost a corporate base as a result of the merger,AmeriSourceBergen’s headquarters is in Valley Forge, Pa., outside of Philadelphia. But federal filings have indicated that the Orange complex will become AmeriSourceBergen’s Western management center, information systems center and electronic commerce operations.
On Bergen Brunswig’s last day of trading (Aug. 29), the company’s shares traded around 23,more than five times its low of around 5 in early 2000. AmeriSourceBergen, on the other hand, steamed out of the gate and was trading in the 60 range shortly after its introduction to the market.
The merger also marks the end of day-to-day control for Robert Martini, the longtime head of Bergen Brunswig. Martini is now non-executive chairman of AmeriSourceBergen, while R. David Yost, who had been chief executive of AmeriSource, is AmeriSourceBergen’s new head guy. Brent Martini, Robert Martini’s son, is running Ameri-SourceBergen Drug Co., the company’s largest subsidiary.
Robert Martini, who turns 70 next January, originally turned over the reins of Bergen around five years ago. He came back, however, after Donald Roden was forced out in the shadow of a falling stock price, softening earnings and a pair of trying acquisitions. Martini worked diligently to shore up Bergen within the next two years, including jettisoning some underperforming units.
Even though AmeriSourceBergen has been born, work continues. One example has to do with determining how many of Bergen Brunswig’s 900 Orange workers would remain with the company. Officials have made it clear that there would be some job cuts,Yost had said that AmeriSourceBergen would go from a combined 52 locations around the U.S. to around 30.
Bergen and AmeriSource originally announced their merger in March, after several months of off-and-on inquiries. The deal seemed to pass through the regulatory apparatus in a quiet way, in contrast with 1998.
Back then, regulators quashed Bergen’s proposed buy of Dublin, Ohio-based Cardinal Health Inc. and a separate proposed deal between AmeriSource and McKesson HBOC Inc. of San Francisco.
At that time, the FTC feared that the combined companies would slice the wholesale drug distribution field from four to two. On the other hand, AmeriSourceBergen becomes one of three large players, along with Cardinal and McKesson.
Because of that, antitrust lawyers and others believed that the AmeriSourceBergen transaction had a much better chance of going through. Additionally, others pointed to the fact that new FTC Chairman Timothy Muris, a President Bush appointee, was considered more receptive to large corporate combinations than his predecessor, Clinton appointee Robert Pitofsky, was.
Hoag Foundation Gets New Leader
Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian, Newport Beach, appointed Ronald Guziak to senior vice president, resource development and executive director of Hoag Hospital Foundation. Guziak will direct day-to-day operations of the foundation, which generated revenue of more than $16 million last year and includes the involvement and participation of more than 12,000 individuals and corporations and 1,400 active volunteers.
Guziak was previously with Little Company of Mary Hospital Foundation and San Pedro Peninsula Hospital Foundation. The executive had run those foundations since 1993. He holds degrees from West Virginia University and Wesleyan University.
Hoag Hospital is currently involved in a campaign to raise approximately $50 million toward building a women’s pavilion on its campus. That seven-story facility is scheduled to open in 2004 and marks Hoag’s first expansion of its main campus in around 25 years.
Bits and Pieces:
TriZetto Group Inc., Newport Beach, said it is collaborating with Sun Microsystems Inc. to make TriZetto’s HealthWeb available on Sun’s computer platforms. Additionally, Sun’s Solaris 8 operating system will serve as a UNIX-based development platform for HealthWeb University of California, Irvine College of Medicine is presenting “Going Public with Human Genetics,” a lecture series, starting Sept. 25. The series will include speakers from UCI, the USC Keck School of Medicine and Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. More information: call 824-5654 Children’s Hospital of Orange County, Orange, had its pet therapy program featured last month on an episode of “Medical Diary,” a Discovery Channel series.
