CARDINAL DISTRIBUTION RAISES $ 51.5 MIL. VIA STOCK OFFERING

Executive Summary

CARDINAL DISTRIBUTION RAISES $ 51.5 MIL. VIA STOCK OFFERING and may use some of the proceeds for acquisitions to further expand the drug wholesaler's distribution operations. So far, however, no agreements have been reached, the firm said May 2. Dublin, Ohio-based Cardinal recently completed a public offering of 1.4 mil. shares of common stock with an overallotment of 210,000 shares for a total of $ 51.5 mil. The average price per share was $ 32. Cardinal is on track for another acquisition, having completed five in the past six years. The most recent addition was the June 1990 purchase of Ohio Valley-Clarksburg, a Wheeling, W.Va. company with annualized sales of more than $ 190 mil., for $ 27.1 mil. ("The Pink Sheet" July 16, T&G-12). The offering follows the wholesaler's first year of $ 1 bil.- plus sales, a more than five-fold increase from 1986 when sales were $ 197 mil. Cardinal estimates that it is now the sixth largest distributor of pharmaceuticals and health care products in the U.S. Pending any acquisitions, Cardinal will use part of the proceeds to reduce bank borrowings, which totaled $ 67.3 mil. at the time of the March 5 offering. The company has made a concerted effort to keep its debt under control. Following the Ohio Valley- Clarksburg acquisition in 1990, Cardinal filed a $ 60 mil. debenture offering with the Securities and Exchange Commission to help reduce the debt accrued in the transaction. Smith Barney, Dean Witter and A. G. Edwards helped underwrite the latest offering, as they did in the debenture offering in 1990. Cardinal also has added the underwriting and managing services of William Blair.