United Health, largest American health insurer, has bought 60% of Brazil’s Amil for $4.9bn. According to the BBC, United Heath is looking to expand overseas and Amil’s $5bn annual profit motivated the American company to begin its expansion.

The most interesting aspect of the news were not the fact that United Health will own, by the first half of 2013, 90% of Amil’s shares but the reason behind why United Health decided to expand, and the role that a SWOT analysis could have played in making this decision. The part of the grid we will be focusing on is the ‘opportunity’ one.

The BBC mentions in their report of United’s purchase that the Brazilian middle class is growing. By a quick research we can see that it represents more than 50% of the country’s population. We can draw the conclusion that United Health was not just looking to fulfill the demand of health care in Brazil but settle in a country that is going through a significant growth in potential consumers. Such opportunity could have been included in a simple SWOT grid that would list the growing market of another country as an external factor.