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CVS Preview: Still About Maintenance Choice

By Brian Gilmartin

 About this article:
 CVS Caremark is scheduled to report third-quarter earnings before the bell on Thursday, and consensus expectations are looking for EPS of 64 cents, for year-over-year growth of 6.5%, on $24.6 billion in revenue, for year-over-year growth of 18%. (The third-quarter 2008 revenue number may not be a proper comparison given that it is highly likely that the Longs drugstore acquisition is not included, since it didn't close until after third quarter 2008.) It has been interesting to watch the steel-cage match between Walgreen and CVS over the past 15 years. Walgreen was the clear outperformer in the 1990s, thanks to organic growth and what was thought to be the better model, but CVS has been the better performer for most of this decade, although the company model changed dramatically with the acquisition of Caremark pharmacy benefit management (PBM) a few years ago. For this quarter, the...

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