Why Share Count Matters: LabCorp in the Crosshairs

You bet your sweet a$$ it is.



Jake, your yeoman's work explaining what should be quite obvious, AND thinking through the premise to its logical conclusion, well, as George Harrison told us on the Yellow Submarine album, It's All Too Much....for those painfully preoccupied with pizza, and predisposed proclaimers of the pied piper's preeminence. Your take on the Jana position in LH, and the why's and wherefores of it, is spot on.

Per Jake's shout box post about LabCorp's strategic review, which by the way, was ordered by the BOARD and MANAGEMENT, here's more detail.

THIS is what executives and directors do in the real world, react and respond to shareholders and shareholder value.

LabCorp Launches Review Following Moves by Activist Jana
2021-03-23 22:30:53.432 GMT


By Emma Court and Scott Deveau
(Bloomberg) -- Laboratory Corp. of America Holdings, which
has been pressed by an activist investor to make changes, said
its board would launch a review of the company’s strategy
because it believed its stock is undervalued.
The lab-testing company has faced questions about the
durability of its Covid-19 screening business and whether it
should spin off its drug-development unit, Covance. LabCorp has
hired Goldman Sachs Group Inc. as its financial adviser, it said
in a statement on Tuesday.
LabCorp’s directors and management team are reviewing the
company’s structure and its capital-allocation strategy “to
ensure we are best positioned to unlock shareholder value while
we continue to support patients and customers around the world,”
spokesman Christopher Allman-Bradshaw said.
Last month, Jana Partners nominated directors to the
LabCorp board amid a push for changes at the company. Jana
hadn’t indicated publicly what steps it wanted, but the New
York-based hedge fund said it backed the moves LabCorp revealed
Tuesday.
Read More: Activist Jana Said to Nominate Directors to
Labcorp’s Board (1)
“We appreciate the constructive dialogue we have had with
management and members of the board, and are fully supportive of
the value unlocking review they are undertaking,” said Barry
Rosenstein, Jana’s founder and managing partner.
Jana has withdrawn its nominees for the board to give the
company an opportunity to conduct its review, according to a
person familiar with the matter.
LabCorp plays a key role in processing U.S. Covid-19 tests,
but like many of its rivals it has seen a decline in demand
since a winter surge in virus cases eased. Its shares have
fallen 3.4% in the past month, reflecting a dimmer outlook for
Covid screenings as vaccination becomes more widespread.
The stock gained 2.6% in after-hours trading in New York
after the review was announced.
Investors have pushed LabCorp executives about what value
Covance, which it acquired in 2015, brings to the company as a
whole.
“I continue to believe that having diagnostics and drug
development together is a winning scenario,” LabCorp Chief
Executive Officer Adam Schechter said on the company’s earnings
conference call last month.
Nephron Research analyst Jack Meehan called LabCorp shares
“bewilderingly cheap” in a late February note. He lauded the
company’s mix of assets and said that its growth strategy has
been working. He said it was no surprise that Jana had gotten
involved, “given the valuation disconnect.”

Just false.  Flat out false.  But let's just continue whitewashing with incomplete facts so we can continue the narrative.  For the record, Dr. Frost pulled in 900K in salary in 2019, 4 times the amount of Mr. Shechter with much less results to speak of.  That has been covered here.  If you choose to read it...unless you choose to ignore it to continue to exalt certain people.

Ok, I'll play that. So, even though reporters never ask Jenn Psaki, Blundering Joey B, Lyin' Commie Comanche Warren, (just plain ol') Commie Bernie the question "What exactly is 'fair share'?", I will nonetheless ask you: what exactly qualifies as long term? Is it the six years since Grodman sold us a pile of poop testing business? Is it the more than 10 years since company inception? Is it the now 10 years since the purchase of Claros? Is today considered long term vs any of those temporal benchmarks? Is it yet another decade of suffering in the mines, while coffee-runner-slide-misplacer Rubin makes $8 million more in salary alone over that time?

If you dare say whatever number of years chosen from the low price date of last year, then you're disqualified from the Final Jeopardy round.

So, LH appears to also be crossing its t's and dotting its i's regarding diversity:

Labcorp Lays out Priorities and Progress in Corporate Responsibility Report

Company Focuses on Sustainable Environmental, Health and Safety Performance,
and Advancing Diversity and Inclusion

Business Wire

BURLINGTON, N.C. -- March 25, 2021

Labcorp (NYSE: LH), a leading global life sciences company, today issued its
2019-2020 Corporate Responsibility Report: Making a Difference When It Counts.
The report includes the ways in which Labcorp carries out its mission of
improving health and improving lives, and charts its progress on priorities
including the company’s environmental, health, and safety performance, as well
as its community partnerships and its commitments to advancing diversity and
inclusion.

Highlights from 2019-2020 include:

* Mobilizing vast parts of the company’s more than 70,000 employees to fight
COVID-19 and provide support for the response to the pandemic, including
developing innovative COVID-19 tests and delivering these tests to tens of
millions of patients, and performing vital research on new vaccines and
therapeutics.
* Conducting more than $1 billion worth of transactions annually with small
businesses owned by minorities, women, veterans, and economically
disadvantaged groups.
* Advancing the company’s commitment to sustainability, including reducing
carbon emissions, increasing recycling, and making facilities more energy
efficient.
* Creating a more diverse and inclusive workforce, establishing employee
resource groups at sites around the world, and improving employee health
and wellness.
* Investing in the communities in which Labcorp operates, including
supporting educational initiatives such as a $1 million donation to
Alamance Community College in North Carolina, enhancing diabetes education
among at-risk communities in Canada, and helping to provide a clean and
reliable water supply to several communities in India.

“I’m incredibly proud of the tireless work our employees have done, especially
over this past year, to deliver science-based innovation and timely, trusted
information to everyone from doctors and drug developers to governments and
patients,” said Adam Schechter, chairman and CEO, Labcorp. “We made tremendous
progress on our priorities around sustainable environmental, health and safety
performance, as well as our community partnerships and commitments to
advancing diversity and inclusion. We are committed to serving all of our
stakeholders with ethics and integrity as we build on the progress outlined in
this year’s Corporate Responsibility Report and come together to meet the
challenges ahead and build a better tomorrow.”

You know what they say: "If at first you do not succeed, try again!" Look's to me like Mr. Lee wants to get paid...So do his lawyers.