RE:Telus Health MergerLiking the idea Monty, that's one way to see a bright future for digitizing primary healthcare in Canada. Those of us who own tens of thousands of shares need to think like this. If you're a Hotdog owning 90 shares as the biggest position in your portfolio by far, not sure why you would even bother writing here.
However, from my understanding, Telus Health in Canada is a carveout of Babylon Health of the UK. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think Telus health has the same perogative as WELL. I think their angle is to use offshoots like health and home security (ADT Canada) to drive more customers towards bundled packages of their core communications products. WELL on the other hand, is primarily focused on primary healthcare (as you say, clinics, virtual pharm, telehealth, EMR, cybersecurity). WELL's strategy for the omni-channel seems to be taking physical assets and digitizing them to drive efficiencies for the operators, the staff and the clients/patients.
CRH is definitely a curve ball in this portfolio, though in the most positive of ways as it is kicking back free cash flow galore! As someone on the board pointed out before, this is accretion in the sense that the acquisition can pay for itself over time with its own free cash flows.
If you want to talk upcoming transactions, beyond Lifelabs and Dynacare, I have also mentioned AppleTree Medical (which the shorts on this bullboard have yet to comment on). AppleTree is another example of a clinic/pharma network that can be digitized and kick back free cash. There are also a few pharmacy startups that WELL can consider, like MedNow, though MedNow is practically copying WELL's capital allocation strategy at a smaller scale. What else can WELL buy? Well, it can start buying itself, buying its own shares at these levels. Once they clear the black out period, I am sure they will be deploying lots of cash to buy and eliminate shares.
I can also see a strategic investor taking a stake in WELL. Like SunLife or ManuLife or Amazon. Who knows, maybe even Telus (not Telus Health but the parent company) can take a stake.
Lots of positive potential with WELL. And of course, the underlying business continues to grow leaps and bounds. Just look at revenues! Look at how many people Circle Medical (just one subsidiary) is hiring. The HR page is a great leading indicator for the company. A much better indicator than interest rates, that is, for us long term shareholders. How many years will you be holding Monty, 5, 10, 20... 40? Let the short term folks chirp all they want. Compounding happens over time. If they don't got the time, they won't be a part of the compound. We have a CEO that doesn't take salary despite the company generating $500MM revenues this year. That tells you everything you need to know about where he thinks the business is going.