By
Temitope Olatunji
April 16th, 2024
After the disband, Haven spokeswoman Brook Thurston said the companies would continue to collaborate informally to cater to individual employees’ health needs.
The joint venture created by Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ: AMZN), Berkshire Hathaway Inc (NYSE: BRK.B), and JPMorgan Chase & Co (NYSE: JPM) Haven is set to disband after three years. Haven was formed to offer proper health care at lower costs for its employees. Currently, the company has 57 workers.
According to a CNBC report, Haven would disband by the end of the next month. Citing familiar sources, CNBC revealed that Haven started informing its employees of the closure on the 4th of January.
Additionally, the sources said that Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway, or JPMorgan Chase are now individually moving ahead in their effort, and some of Haven’s workers would move to either of the companies. Also, the familiar sources said that the three companies would continue to partner regarding health-care projects informally.
The sources further revealed a major challenge facing Haven. As noted in the CNBC report, each of the companies separately worked on its own projects with its employees. That way, the companies did not acknowledge the need for the joint venture formed three years ago.
Berkshire CEO Says ‘No Guarantee of Success’ for Haven
Before now, Berkshire CEO Warren Buffett hinted that Heaven may not succeed in improving the health-care system. At the time, the joint venture was not succeeding according to the original plan. In an interview with CNBC’s Becky Quick in 2019, Buffett said:
“It has no guarantee of success at all, but there’s nobody I think that’s in a better position, in terms of number of employees, ability of the people that are partnering to get along and all kinds of things, to perhaps come up with something to make the system more efficient.”
CNBC further stated that the companies’ plan to shutter Haven shows the difficulty in improving health care in the US. According to the report, it costs the US government about $3.5 trillion yearly to enhance health-care for its citizens.
Although many are not pleased with the disbandment, insiders said that the break-up would help each company to develop personal projects. The sources added that the individual projects will help each company to cater for the specific needs of their employees.
Speaking on the disbandment, a spokeswoman for Haven Brooke Thurston said:
“Moving forward, Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway, and JPMorgan Chase & Co. will leverage these insights and continue to collaborate informally to design programs tailored to address the specific needs of our individual employees populations and locations.”
Upon the joint venture’s announcement three years ago, top health-care companies recorded losses in their shares. At the time, many believed that the collaboration of the three powerful companies would squeeze out costs from the health sector.
However, shares of health care companies rose in reaction to the news of the disbandment by month-end. UnitedHealth Group (NYSE: UNH), Humana (NYSE: HUM), and CVS Health Corp (NYSE: CVS) added over 2% each.