Merck CEO plans to acquire other firms Auj. à 18:02
Merck CEO plans to acquire other firms
Thursday, January 08, 2009
BY SHANNON PETTYPIECE
Star-Ledger Staff
BLOOMBERG NEWSMerck chief executive Richard Clark will buy other companies in 2009 or consider returning cash to shareholders.
Merck is "aggressively looking" at all types of acquisitions, Clark said yesterday at the Goldman Sachs Global Healthcare Conference in New York. If he doesn't find a deal, he said, he may the increase the dividend or repurchase shares.
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Merck had $6.8 billion in cash and short-term investments as of Sept. 30. The Whitehouse Station -based drugmaker needs new products to help offset revenue it will lose when generic copies of its biggest product, the Singulair asthma treatment, go on sale in 2012. Clark said in an October interview that 25 percent of Merck's early research will come from licensing and acquisitions by 2013.
"It has to be financially smart, it has to have long-term shareholder value," Clark said yesterday, referring to deal prospects. "If we don't find the right internal use for investments or external use then we have a responsibility either through dividends or share buybacks to reevaluate that cash position."
Clark predicted other drugmakers also will pursue mergers or acquisitions. Last year, Roche AG offered $43.7 billion for the 44 percent stake in Genentech that Roche didn't already own, and Eli Lilly & Co. paid $6.5 billion for ImClone Systems Inc.
"There is no doubt many companies are looking at that deal that will transform their company," Clark said. "I do think it can't be business as usual and certainly the consolidations aren't over."
Merck froze its quarterly dividend at the annual rate of $1.52 a share in 2004 when it recalled its painkiller Vioxx.
The drugmaker lost 48 percent of its value last year amid falling sales of its Zetia and Vytorin cholesterol pills and Gardasil cancer vaccine.
"2008 was a disappointing year and in many ways it was an unacceptable year," Clark said. "We've learned from those issues to make sure we don't repeat them."
l'imp è che nn sia il corvo camuffato...
