Option Care Health jumps after report McKesson and CD&R are near a $5 billion-plus buyout

Option Care Health shares jumped about 21% in after-hours trading on Monday after a report that drug distributor McKesson and private equity firm Clayton Dubilier & Rice are in advanced talks to buy the home-infusion company in a deal that would value it at more than $5 billion, including debt.

The Financial Times reported, citing people familiar with the matter, that an agreement could come as soon as Tuesday but that the talks could still fall apart. Under the terms being discussed, CD&R would own 51% of Option Care and McKesson 49%, and McKesson would have the right to buy the private equity firm's stake later. McKesson declined to comment, and none of the three companies has announced a deal or confirmed the talks.

Option Care closed the regular session at $23.37, up 3.2%, then traded at $28.25 in extended trading at 6:27 p.m. Eastern time, 20.9% above the close. Even after that jump, the stock was below the 52-week high of $36.80 it set in January.

What Option Care does

Option Care describes itself as the largest independent U.S. provider of home and alternate-site infusion services: it gives patients intravenous medicines at home or in outpatient settings instead of in a hospital. It has more than 8,000 employees, including more than 5,000 clinicians, and works in all 50 states.

Its growth has been slow. Second-quarter revenue rose 1.9% to $1.44 billion, and adjusted EBITDA, a measure of earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, rose 3% to $117.5 million. For 2026 the company forecasts revenue of $5.675 billion to $5.775 billion and adjusted EBITDA of $480 million to $495 million. It had about $1.15 billion of long-term debt at the end of June and bought back $150 million of its own stock during the quarter.

By TickerGrove's arithmetic, a value of more than $5 billion including debt would be more than 10 times the midpoint of that full-year adjusted EBITDA forecast.

Why McKesson would want a stake

McKesson, which reported $105.4 billion of revenue in the quarter ended June 30, has been shifting toward faster-growing specialty businesses. Revenue in its Oncology & Multispecialty segment, which serves cancer and specialty-care providers, rose 33% to $14.2 billion in that quarter, helped by acquisitions. In August it agreed to buy Precision Medicine Group, a provider of clinical research and drug-commercialization services, for about $2.25 billion.

At the same time, McKesson is preparing to separate its medical-surgical supply business, which will be called Wellverse, after selling a stake of about 13% in that unit to Apollo funds for $1.25 billion in June.

A stake in Option Care would take McKesson a step beyond distributing specialty drugs to the clinics that give them, into patients' homes and outpatient infusion sites. The structure under discussion would let it begin as a minority owner, with CD&R in control, while keeping a path to full ownership.

McKesson shares closed up 1.5% at $915.45 on Monday, giving the company a market value of about $106.7 billion.