Healtheon to slow buying spree, focus on integration
June 8, 2000 04:09 PM
NEW YORK, June 8 (Reuters) - Healtheon/WebMD Corp. HLTH chief executive said Thursday the Internet health care firm was slowing down on acquisitions to focus on integration.
"We are out of the (mergers and acquisition) game and gearing toward execution," said Jeffrey Arnold, Healtheon CEO, at the 11th annual PaineWebber Growth & Technology Conference."Our greatest growth will come with putting transactions online."
The Atlanta-based company, which was formed last year through the merger of Healtheon and WebMD, has been seen by many analysts as spawning merger mania in the electronic health sector. Its aim has been to build a system of services and software that allow doctors, patients and insurance companies to do business over the Internet.
The company recently completed its closely-watched acquisition of Envoy, the electronic transaction unit of Quintiles Transnational Corp. QTRN With Envoy in its pocket, Healtheon holds about 2 billion of the three billion electronic health insurance transactions filed each year.
The market is still waiting on the closing of Healtheon's acquisition of rival Medical Manager Corp. MMGR and its publicly traded unit CareInsite Inc. CARI
Federal regulators have asked for more details on the deal, but Arnold said he was confident the purchase would go through.
"We are still committed to closing the deal ... I talked to (Medical Manager and CareInsite Chairman) Marty Wygod every day," Arnold said. "The sector has suffered, but we believe that we have the assets and resources to execute the business plan."
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