Deals
Reality Plays Matchmaker
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For a year, merger frenzy has gripped the health-care world. Giant drugmakers Merck & Co. and Roche Holding Ltd. have bought distributors and smaller rivals. Health-care providers Columbia Healthcare Corp. and HCA have agreed to combine operations. Amid the tumult, though, the insurance industry has been strangely quiet.
Until now. On June 14, Travelers Cos. and Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. announced they would combine their health operations in a transaction, valued at $1 billion, that will create the nation's largest health insurer (chart). MetLife also will buy Travelers' group life, disability, and dental-coverage businesses. "We decided to put Snoopy with the red umbrella," says Sanford I. Weill, Travelers' chairman.