Aetna profits up more than expected

Aetna made

$1.21 billion and beat Wall Street earnings expectations in the first quarter, as the health insurer moved closer to sealing its roughly $69 billion combination with CVS Health.

The nation’s third largest insurer said Tuesday it swung to a profit after booking a loss in the first three months of 2017 because of costs from another deal, its failed bid to acquire rival Humana. Several months after regulators rejected that combination, CVS Health said it would buy Aetna.

Shareholders of both companies approved that deal earlier this year, and company leaders expect it to close in the second half of 2018. But it still needs government approval.

In the first quarter, Aetna booked earnings of $3.19 per share when adjusted for nonrecurring gains. Revenue excluding investment gains and interest income slipped 2 percent to $15.22 billion, mainly due to the sale of some businesses in last year’s fourth quarter.

Analysts expected, on average, earnings of $2.97 per share on $15.32 billion in revenue, according to Zacks Investment Research.

Amazon unveiled plans Tuesday for a major expansion in Boston’s Seaport District, promising 2,000 new technology jobs even as the city remains in contention for the company’s coveted second headquarters.

Seattle-based Amazon announced it would move into a 430,000-square-foot “Tech Hub” in 2021, and said the new jobs would be created in fields including machine learning, speech science, cloud computing and robotics.

The company currently has about 1,200 workers in the city. In 2016, the company opened a fulfillment center in Fall River, Massachusetts, that employs more than 1,000 workers.