GENZ in talks with Takeda for $82. per share buyout. Termeer has set a goal of $89., so there really could be a bidding war for them
graham
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bloomberg.com
Genzyme Corp. started talks with Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. to try to sell itself for more than $18.5 billion, the Mail on Sunday reported, citing a person familiar with the matter.
Takeda, which could pay $82 a share, is among several drugmakers that Genzyme has approached in recent weeks to foil a hostile $69-a-share offer from Sanofi-Aventis SA, the newspaper said. Mihoko Shinomiya, a spokeswoman for Osaka, Japan-based Takeda, declined to comment on the report, saying the company doesn’t respond to market speculation. Takeda fell as much as 1 percent to 3,900 yen in Tokyo trading and declined 0.6 percent to 3,915 yen at 10:11 a.m. local time.
Genzyme Chief Executive Officer Henri Termeer told investors last month the U.S. biotechnology company was trying to assess its value and gauge outside interest. He estimated Genzyme could be worth $89 a share after lifting its profit forecast. Sanofi took its offer for Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Genzyme hostile on Oct. 4 after the largest maker of medicines for rare genetic disorders spurned the bid as too low.
London-based GlaxoSmithKline Plc, New York-based Pfizer Inc. and Eli Lilly & Co., based in Indianapolis, have also been linked with potential bids for Genzyme, the report in yesterday’s Mail on Sunday said. Paris-based Sanofi is the only bidder for Genzyme, CNBC’s David Faber reported on Nov. 10.
Takeda, Asia’s largest drugmaker, has about $5 billion available for acquisitions and “could easily borrow $10 billion,” President Yasuchika Hasegawa said in a Sept. 22 interview. |
