AbbVie Nears Deal to Buy Allergan for More Than $60 Billion--Update
25 June 2019 - 9:02PM
Dow Jones News
By Cara Lombardo, Jonathan D. Rockoff and Dana Cimilluca
AbbVie Inc. is nearing a deal to buy Allergan PLC for more than
$60 billion, according to people familiar with the matter, as two
big drugmakers bet a combination will deliver new sources of growth
they have struggled to find on their own.
The takeover, worth $188 a share in cash and stock, is expected
to be announced later Tuesday, the people said. The price, mainly
to be paid in cash, represents a 45% premium over Allergan's
closing share price Monday of $129.57. If not for a surge in the
shares in recent days on expectations for a breakup of the company,
the premium would be even bigger.
Buying Dublin-based Allergan would deliver a dominant position
in the $8 billion-plus market for Botox and other beauty drugs, as
well as a number of popular eye treatments, as AbbVie braces for
the end of patent protection for the world's top-selling drug,
Humira.
The companies' portfolios have some overlap in treatments for
brain, women's-health, stomach and other disorders, though the
combination would take AbbVie into the new realm of frown-line
smoothing, eyelash lengthening and double-chin removal.
Allergan's nearly $16 billion in yearly revenue would also give
AbbVie another source of cash to hunt for a new generation of
products.
Lately, Wall Street has been clamoring for change at Allergan,
with its shares trading at a fraction of their peak of more than
$330 in the summer of 2015. Analysts have been saying the company
could split into two pieces but few expected CEO Brent Saunders to
pull off a sale, especially at such a lofty premium.
Write to Cara Lombardo at cara.lombardo@wsj.com, Jonathan D.
Rockoff at Jonathan.Rockoff@wsj.com and Dana Cimilluca at
dana.cimilluca@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
June 25, 2019 06:47 ET (10:47 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2019 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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