Cardinal Health Stock Drops 19% After $6.1 Bln Medtronic Deal; Updated 2017 Guidance

Cardinal Health Inc. shares dropped 19.3% in premarket trade Tuesday after the company said it had agreed to a $6.1 billion deal for certain Medtronic businesses and updated its 2017 guidance. The company now expects fiscal 2017 earnings per share to come in at the bottom of earlier guidance of $5.35 to $5.50, compared with the FactSet consensus of $5.42. Cardinal Health attributed the guidance to generic deflation in its pharmaceutical business. Cardinal Health expects the Medtronic deal, which is for the company's patient care, deep vein thrombosis and nutritional businesses and should close in the first quarter of fiscal 2018, to add at least 21 cents to EPS that year. Still, Cardinal Health expects EPS to be flat to down mid-single digits for fiscal year 2018, due to "several company-specific discrete items" that it did not specify and generic deflation. The Medtronic businesses encompass 23 product categories and include brands used in nearly every U.S. hospital, Cardinal Health said, with the businesses bringing in $23 billion in revenue for 12 months through October 2016. Company shares have surged 8.0% over the last three months, compared with a 3.4% rise in the S&P 500 .