上周，《華爾街日報》（Wall Street Journal ）報道稱CVS Health正在“商討”收購醫療保險公司安泰（Aetna），激起了整個醫療業的波瀾。CVS Health是美國收入排行第七的大公司，如果收購成功，加上安泰（《財富》500強第43位），他們將成為一個年收入2,400億美元的龐然大物，業務范圍會遍布從藥店零售到福利管理再到保險的各個醫療領域。

一般來說，任何巨頭的誕生都會引發騷動。不過這一次，人們對收購理由的討論也令人屏息——為什么CVS愿意以駭人聽聞的130億美元溢價來購買安泰的股份？（根據報道，CVS每股200美元的報價比安泰周三的收盤股價高了大約40美元。周四交易的留言傳出后，安泰的股價一路上漲。根據安泰最近一次的10-Q報表，今年6月30日，公司的流通股為3.32億。）

為了尋求答案，所有的目光都投向了另一家值得關注的巨頭亞馬遜（Amazon.com），該公司已經露出跡象要進軍CVS所在的醫藥領域。《圣路易斯郵報》（St. Louis Post-Dispatch）報道稱這家“萬有商店”（The Everything Store）在至少12個州申請并得到了藥品批發許可證，又讓這些傳聞多了一份可信度。

其他人則認為這是出于更加根本的競爭考慮，CVS Health需要安泰（或類似的公司）從而更好地與聯合健康集團（UnitedHealth Group）競爭，后者旗下擁有管理式醫療機構（MCO）和藥品福利管理（PBM）。的確，Fuld & Company的負責人羅伯特·弗林應該獲得未卜先知獎，他早在6月就表示“CVS Health有六大理由應當迅速收購安泰”（你現在可以后知后覺地看看這篇文章，真的相當精彩）。

不過這份傳聞的收購意向讓我思考的不是原因，而是當事人——尤其是這家很受歡迎的公司的領導者：安泰的首席執行官薄立倪（Mark Bertolini）。

薄立倪想出了一種聰明的辦法來回饋股東，其重點在于關注員工的福利。兩年半前，薄立倪有過一次高調的舉動，他在摩根大通（JPMorgan）的年度健康會議上宣布：安泰將大幅提高公司在美國的員工的最低工資，同時幫忙承擔員工的醫療費用。

盡管當時其他人都在嘲笑這份慷慨，但安泰的股東卻受益頗豐。自2015年1月宣布決定以來，包含股息在內，安泰給股東的年化回報率高達29%，而標普500指數的平均值為11.1%。在薄立倪宣布當天持有公司股票直至今日的股東，會發現他們的股票價值已經翻了一倍還多（同期標普500指數的收益要低得多，只有34%）。

盡管如此，當我在今年夏末與薄立倪談話時，他看起來似乎并沒有特別滿意——至少在美國大部分企業的發展方向上。實際上，他表示，如果讓美國實驗走向成功的資本主義制度想要繼續保持成功，就需要設法讓美國工人更多地分享和參與到這份繁榮當中。

他在8月底對我說：“我是這樣考慮的。首席執行官必須繪制未來5至10年內世界的樣貌。這并非如今的樣貌對比其他可能的情況，而是未來5至10年內我們應該變成什么樣，對比我們會變成什么樣。如果在目前的資本主義模式下故步自封，就會讓資本主義走向毀滅。當35歲以下的人中有65%相信社會主義會是更好的模式時，我們就有麻煩了。我們會有麻煩。除非我們開始改變，否則情況就會出現變化——而且這種變化恐怕會很糟糕。”

薄立倪繼續道：“我對其他首席執行官的呼吁是：‘我們作為資本主義的領頭人，如果不去改變它，就會有其他人來改變——到那時，場面一定不會好看。’”

他繼續道：“我認為需要強烈的呼喚來改變現狀。除非我們自己這么做——除非人們大聲說出來，討論我們可以如何變得更好，我們的力量可以實現所有人的共贏，絕非幾乎無濟于事——否則我們就會身處相當糟糕的時期。我專注于向許多人傳達這種信息，因為這就是未來的現實。”

當我在9月的《財富》和《時代》首席執行官峰會上見到薄立倪時，他重申了這一觀點。

如果CVS的并購實現，安泰的首席執行官似乎不太可能進入新的領導層。薄立倪在安泰建立的企業文化能否存續下去，恐怕要打個問號。如果不能，情況就太糟了——對于股東來說，似乎也是如此。（財富中文網）

譯者：嚴匡正

Yesterday’s report by the Wall Street Journal that CVS Health was “in talks” to buy health insurer Aetna sent ripples through much of the healthcare realm. The combination of CVS Health, the seventh-biggest company in the U.S. by revenue, with Aetna (No. 43 on the Fortune 500) would, if it were to go through, create a corporate behemoth with $240 billion in annual revenue across a wide swath of the healthcare continuum, from retail pharmacy and benefit management to insurance.

As a rule, any creation of a new behemoth generates buzz. But this time, there has been equally breathless talk about why—Why, that is, CVS would offer what, presumably, would be a jaw-dropping $13 billion premium for Aetna’s stock? (The reported $200-a-share offer would have been roughly $40 bucks above Aetna’s closing share price on Wednesday, before word of the potential deal leaked out on Thursday, sending Aetna’s stock due north. On June 30, according to the insurer’s latest 10-Q, the company had 332 million shares outstanding.)

For the answer, all eyes turned to that other buzz-worthy behemoth, Amazon.com, which has given signs it’s moving into CVS Health’s pharmacy territory. Those rumors got more weight after the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported that “The Everything Store” had applied for and received wholesale pharmacy licenses in at least 12 states.

Others pointed to more fundamental concerns of competition, suggesting that CVS Health needed Aetna (or something like it) to better compete with UnitedHealth Group, which has both a managed care organization (MCO) and a pharmacy benefit manager (PBM) under the same roof. Indeed, the Oracle of Delphi award ought to go to Robert Flynn, a principal at Fuld & Company, who spelled out back in June “Six Reasons Why CVS Health Should Acquire Aetna . . . Soon.” (Reading the post now, in hindsight, it’s actually pretty brilliant.)

But the purported offer got me thinking not about the why but about the who—particularly, about the leader of the sought-after company, Aetna CEO Mark Bertolini.

Bertolini has figured out a clever way of rewarding shareholders. And that’s largely by focusing on the wellbeing of his employees. Witness one high-profile move the CEO made two and a half years ago, when Bertolini announced at the annual JPMorgan health confab that Aetna would substantially raise the minimum wage of its U.S. employees and also help offset worker healthcare costs.

Though, at the time, others scoffed at the largesse, Aetna’s shareholders have benefitted remarkably. Since that announcement in January of 2015, Aetna has returned an annualized 29% to its stockholders including dividends, compared with 11.1% for the S&P 500. Shareholders who held stock on the date of Bertolini’s announcement and still hold it today have seen the value of their original stake more than double (compared with the more modest 34% gain for the S&P 500 during the same period).

That said, when I spoke to Bertolini late in the summer, he didn’t seem remotely satisfied—at least with the direction that much of America’s corporate enterprise seems to be headed. Indeed, he says, if the capitalist system that has driven the American Experiment to success is to continue driving to success, it needs to figure out a way for American workers to share more, and feel a greater stake in, that prosperity.

“Here’s the way I think about it,” he told me at the end of August. “CEOs are required to paint a stark reality of what the world looks like in five to 10 years. So it’s not what it is today versus other alternatives today. It’s about what should we be versus what it’s going to look like in five to 10 years from now. And doing nothing, in the current model around capitalism, will destroy capitalism. When 65% of people under the age of 35 believe that socialism is a better model, we have a problem. We have a problem. So unless we change it, it will change—and maybe not in a good way.”

Bertolini continued: “My call to other CEOs is: ‘If we don’t step up to change it, as captains of capitalism, somebody else will—and it will not be pretty when that happens.’”

“I think there’s a clarion call to make a difference here,” he went on. “And unless we do it on our own—unless people speak out and talk about how we can be better, and we can lift all boats versus just the 1 percent—We’re in for a really bad time. So I’m very focused on that message with a lot of folks because that’s the reality in the future.”

When I saw Bertolini in late September, at Fortune’s and Time’s CEO Initiative, he reiterated the sentiment.

It seems unlikely that Aetna’s chief would remain in the new corporate fold if the purported CVS acquisition were to happen. And one has to wonder whether the corporate culture Bertolini has built there would survive as well. It would be too bad if it didn’t—and seemingly, for shareholders, too.