Topic: How To Invest

Hi Pat: Can you offer an opinion on the prospects for Omnicare? Regards.

Article Excerpt

Omnicare, $21.92, symbol OCR on New York (Shares outstanding: 118.2 million; Market cap: $2.6 billion), provides pharmaceutical-management services for the elderly. That’s where the company buys, repackages and dispenses prescription and non-prescription medication according to doctors’ orders. Omnicare then delivers the drugs to long-term care facilities, where nursing staff administer them for individual residents. Omnicare serves residents in long-term-care and chronic-care facilities, as well as other settings. In all, it serves about 1.4 million beds in 47 states, the District of Columbia and Canada. The company gets 44% of its revenue from individuals with private insurance plans, 42% from Medicare and 10% from Medicaid. Omnicare is the largest U.S. provider of professional pharmacy, related consulting and data-management services for nursing, assisted-living and other institutional health-care providers. It also provides these services for hospice patients in home care and other settings. The company also offers clinical research services for the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries in 32 countries. In the three months ended June 30,…