Merck Shares Fall on Worries About Accounting at Medco Unit By REUTERS Filed at 9:40 a.m. ET
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Merck & Co. Inc. (MRK.N) shares fell nearly 4 percent on Monday after news it recorded revenue of over $14 billion from its pharmacy-benefits subsidiary Medco that the unit never actually collected. The information was contained in a company filing to the Securities and Exchange Commission filed on Friday. The shares were off $1.76, or 3.6 percent, at $47.10 in Monday morning trading on the New York Stock Exchange. Merrill Lynch analyst Steven Tighe cut his long-term investment rating on the stock to ``neutral'' from ``buy'' because of the proportion of revenue the company booked for patient co-payments that that pharmacies received instead of Medco. ``This may reduce the likelihood that the Medco IPO gets done at this time,'' Tighe said in a research note. Merck was planning to sell 20 percent of Medco in an initial public offering, but the deal has been postponed twice. full: http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/business/business-health-merck-revenues.html Louis Proyect Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org
