Exhibit  99.02


     The Company incurred special items during the fourth quarter, consisting
primarily of merger-related and restructuring charges of $33.1 million, a
one-time, special contribution to The Cardinal Foundation of $31.7 million and
costs related to the SEC investigation and Audit Committee internal review of
$6.2 million. These costs were partially offset by income of $31.6 million
received in conjunction with the settlement of litigation arising from antitrust
claims alleging certain prescription drug manufacturers took improper actions to
delay or prevent generic drug competition. Merger charges include such items as
costs associated with exit and consolidation of facilities as well as costs of
integrating acquired businesses. Restructuring charges primarily relate to
decisions made by management to incur costs to realign components of its
business operations to meet current business demands. The special contribution
was executed as a direct result of litigation settlements received during the
quarter. On a net basis, these special items totaled $39.4 million ($25.3
million after tax) versus $49.0 million ($33.3 million after tax) for the
year-earlier period. In the opinion of management, these items, by their nature,
rarely have predictable trends and are not truly reflective of ongoing operating
results. Therefore, the Company presents its results on both a GAAP basis (GAAP)
and a GAAP basis excluding these items ("adjusted").

     Management encourages readers to rely upon the GAAP numbers, but includes
the "adjusted" numbers as a supplemental metric to assist readers. It should be
noted that the items being adjusted from the GAAP results represent actual
income or expense to the Company. These items impact operating cash flow
available to support on-going operations. As such, these items are an important
component of the financial performance of the Company and any metric excluding
them will present an incomplete picture. Nevertheless, management uses
"adjusted" results to measure its performance, in addition to the GAAP results.
As the Company's core business is providing health care products and services to
the healthcare industry, management finds it useful to use a metric that is free
of charges and gains associated with restructuring, merger related activity and
litigation. While these may be recurring items for the Company, management
believes they are not reflective of the day-to-day offering of its products and
services and are related more to strategic, multi-year corporate actions that
tend to mask the trends and financial performance of the Company's products and
services. Management also believes that investors may also find an unmasked view
of the Company's core operations to be useful.