Abbott deal for St. Jude spurs company split talk

When Abbott Laboratories said on Thursday it would buy heart device company St. Jude Medical Inc for $25 billion, it set off a flurry of Wall Street speculation over whether Abbott Chief Executive Miles White is laying groundwork to split the company yet again. Three years ago, White spun off Abbott's fast-growing branded drugs business into a new company, AbbVie, buoyed by top-selling arthritis medicine Humira, which helped AbbVie shares double. Abbott retained medical devices, nutritionals, di