All eyes are on Perrigo’s investors, who will have to decide whether to accept Mylan’s offer when the wannabe acquirer takes it to them next Monday. And Israeli businessman Mori Arking, for one, plans to deliver a resounding “no.”
Arkin–a 0.5% stakeholder and former Perrigo vice chairman who sold his pharma company, Agis Industries, to the drugmaker decade ago–says the $27 billion offer is too low. If the Irish company’s investors wait a few months, they can “have the same price without the hassle and risk involved in a Mylan deal,” he told Reuters.
“Usually, when a good company is acquired, it is for a significant premium. In our case, it’s negligible, if at all,” he said, forecasting that Perrigo’s stock–which currently sits at around $177–would trade at near $190 come early next year.
Mylan, for its part, disagrees. Its offer has been protecting Perrigo’s stock from “the recent sell-off in the markets,” chairman Robert Coury wrote in a Tuesday letter to Perrigo chief Joseph Papa, estimating that Perrigo’s stock would otherwise be trading at around $150 per share. The way he sees it, if the transaction doesn’t go through Perrigo shareholders could “experience an approximate $30 per share drop in the value of their portfolio, and lose the opportunity to receive $75 per share in cash.”
But the price isn’t the only factor Arkin is worried about. Under Irish takeover law, an owner needs 80% of votes to push out minority invstors. Mylan, though, has said that if it gets more than 50% while falling short of the 80% threshold, it’ll run Perrigo as a separate entity and let its stock “languish … allowing Mylan to buy the stock on the cheap,” execs told Bernstein analyst Ronny Gal in August.
To Arkin, that’ll be a “nightmare,” he told Reuters, predicting that each board would pursue its own interests rather than working together.
Perrigo still has room to make some moves that could convince its investors to stay faithful, though, Gal recently pointed out. “If Perrigo can offer a reasonable value enhancing alternative, it will likely convince enough investors (including some hedge funds and dual-stock holders) not to tender in their shares,” he wrote in a note to clients. “We think it behooves Perrigo management to do just that.”
By Carly Helfand
Source: Fierce Pharma
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