Hat tip to David Gelles of The New York Times for landing the scoop about US drugs giant Merck talking to Cubist Pharmaceuticals about a takeover deal of more than $7 billion.
Here is a link to David's piece: http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/12/05/merck-in-talks-to-acquire-drug-maker-cubist-for-more-than-7-billion/?_r=0
What, though, I am wondering (aloud) is whether Merck's move on Cubist will tempt London-listed Shire into making a counter offer for the biopharmaceutical company?
Loyal readers should recall that I wrote a piece for The Sunday Times in October about how Shire was planning to get back on the acquisition trail after AbbVie ditched its multi-billion takeover of the FTSE 100 company. Back then, American companies Cubist, NPS and Salix were all tipped as potential takeover targets for Shire. Here is a link to The Sunday Times article: http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/business/Companies/article1472664.ece
To be clear, since the publication of The Sunday Times piece I have not been updated on where Shire has go to with potential acquisitions although market sources believe an acquisition of Cubist could be "accretive" to earnings for the Footsie company. One to keep an eye on, at least, on Monday.
On another note, The Sunday Telegraph business section had an interesting splash (journo parlance for the lead front page story) on Crystal Amber's interest in leading an activist campaign at J Sainsbury.
Here are links to The Sunday Telegraph piece and Betaville's article in November on the topic:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/retailandconsumer/11277855/httpwww.telegraph.co.ukfinancenewsbysectorretailandconsumer11277855Activists-plot-share-raid-on-Sainsburys.html.html
http://betaville123.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/a-sunday-review-on-monday.html
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Merger And Acquisition Process