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Managed care company Cigna Corp. said Thursday it earned $330 million, or $1.19 per share, in the final quarter of 2009 on $4.64 billion in revenue. The insurer's financial picture was helped by improving equity markets that erased an earnings hit it suffered in 2008 from a couple of discontinued businesses.

Cigna CEO David Cordani talked with analysts about the company's international growth and capital deployment plans.

QUESTION: On merger and acquisition priorities, will they be consistent with your desire to grow faster internationally, or will they be more domestically based?

RESPONSE: M&A is clearly our second priority once we take care of the appropriate needs of capital for the ongoing operations. We continue to expect, actually, that our industry will consolidate over time, although the view, at least in the U.S., is that the (Obama) administration views that the maintenance of choice in the industry is rather important.

We would look at M&A two ways: One is capability-based and the second is scale-based. And as to whether or not we have a bias toward non-U.S. or U.S. assets, I would say we're open to either.

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