Graystone, if I'm given information by someone who is affiliated with the company (i.e. a principal, the IR guy, etc), I consider that information to be "official". Press releases, at least to me, are just a formal means to release information and, thus, no more official than if I'm told that information personally.
So, yes, someone who is on the AZNT payroll did tell me that within the last few days AZNT met with representatives of Monsanto, and, prior to that, the two companies met last December. This person expressed optimism that there would be news of some sort of agreement in the near future. Does that mean anything? Of course not. All companies are optimistic they will close every deal they are currently negotiating.
As for my contact at Monsanto, I think you're reading too much into that. I get curious. I call. In this case I called one number, got transferred to someplace else and then was told someone else in the sweetener division would call me back. So far I haven't gotten a call back. As these are not toll-free calls, I don't get paid for making them, and as I don't expect Monsanto to tell me who they are in private negotiations with anyway, I'm really not inclined to spend another half hour or more playing phone tag with them. But if there's no squeeze on Monday I might get curious again and call. Who knows. Perhaps you'll have better luck, so why not give it a shot?
BTW, yes, I certainly did ask AZNT for a contact person... anyone... at Monsanto. All I wanted was proof they talked. But, in retrospect, I was once invited to Redmond to talk to Microsoft; sounds impressive but it had nothing to do with them buying my company, so big deal.
But here's a story I hear floating around that supposedly came from the company: back when Monsanto was hoping to commercialize Stevia they made a trip to visit the Amazon rain forest to take back a whole bunch of Stevia to check out. Upon trying to get through customs they were told by the Brazilian government that they had to get the permission of AZNT first. As there was no way they were going to give another company a percentage of the Stevia market they just burned the stuff and dropped the idea. Perhaps Cavalry can verify if he's heard that one for us.
- Jeff
P.S. If you turn on your private message feature I'll send you some stuff too speculative to post. |
