Updated from 9:12 a.m. EST
Shares of
Healtheon/WebMD
(HLTH)
plunged Friday after the online health network, which has made a flurry of acquisitions in the past three months, posted a fourth-quarter loss that was far larger than Wall Street expected.
Healtheon/WebMD's stock fell 6 9/16, or 11.2%, to close at 51 15/16.
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The stock was down because "there was nothing spectacularly good" in the results, said analyst Anthony Vendetti of
Gruntal & Co.
"There was no overwhelmingly positive news in the release so people are taking a ho-hum approach." He rates Healtheon/WebMD an intermediate- and long-term outperformer and his firm has done no underwriting for the company.
Another concern is the ability of the company to integrate all it plans to acquire. In a period of just over three weeks in January and February, Healtheon/WebMD made four acquisition announcements.
For the fourth quarter ended Dec. 31, the Atlanta-based company reported a net loss of $234.75 million, or $1.98 a diluted share, far exceeding its loss of $18.19 million, or 34 cents a share, a year earlier.
Revenue more than doubled to $33.24 million from $15.61 million a year earlier, the company said in a statement that was released shortly after midnight.
Results include Healtheon's merger with WebMD as well as the
Mede America
and
Medcast
acquisitions, which were completed in the middle of the fourth quarter.
As a result of the three transactions completed last year, Healtheon/WebMD recorded intangible assets of $3.6 billion and amortization expense of those intangibles of $169 million for 1999.
Excluding depreciation and amortization, the company's fourth quarter loss would have been $49.3 million, or 42 cents a share, compared with $13.1 million or 25 cents a share a year earlier. The consensus estimate of analysts polled by
First Call/Thomson Financial
was a loss of 55 cents.
It's been a busy time for Healtheon/WebMD, which begs the question of how Healtheon/WebMD will successfully integrate its myriad mergers, acquisitions and tie-ups. "Clearly the No. 1 risk for the company is the huge execution and integration challenge on its hands," Vendetti said.
It completed the $300 million
acquisition of
Kinetra
, which provides e-commerce services to physicians. It also announced the pending all-stock acquisitions of
Envoy
, which specializes in electronic transactions of health care industry data and billing, for about
$2.5 billion;
Medical Manager
(MMGR)
, which provides physician practice management systems, and its publicly traded subsidiary
CareInsite
(CARI)
, which provides health care network and clinical communications services, for about
$4.8 billion; and rival
OnHealth Network
(ONHN)
for
for $265 million.In addition to the establishment of various strategic alliances, the company has cut a deal with Rupert Murdoch's
News Corp.
(NWS) - Get Report
for a $1 billion programming and cross-promotional partnership
agreement.
"Healtheon/WebMD is clearly the leader in the space," Vendetti said. "With the Medical Manager-CareInsite acquisition, I don't even see a No. 2."
Vendetti added that Healtheon/WebMD is sitting atop a $1.5 billion pile of cash. That's on a combined pro forma basis and includes a $930 million investment in January by
Janus Capital
.
