Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Kohan to Lead New Merial-Intervet JV With Sanofi


Not an hour ago, I wrote that I'd like an update on the New Merial JV -- and ECC/FTC timing -- and here it is, courtesy of Raul Kohan's annointment, erh. . . appointment, out of Merck's press corps:

. . . .Raul E. Kohan will be appointed Chief Executive Officer of their proposed Animal Health joint venture. Sanofi-aventis and Merck -- known as MSD outside the United States and Canada -- intend to combine Merial with Intervet/Schering-Plough, to create a new global leader in Animal Health to be called Merial-Intervet.

Mr. Kohan is currently President of Intervet/Schering-Plough, Merck's Animal Health business. He will commence his new responsibilities when the new joint venture is approved by regulatory authorities and closes, which is expected to occur in the first quarter of 2011. The formation of this new animal health joint venture is subject to execution of final agreements, antitrust review in the United States, Europe and other countries, as well as other customary closing conditions. . . .

Color me skeptical about that early 2011 date, as no ECC filing has been made, nor any Hart-Scott filing. I'll keep you posted.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Condor: This is bad. If you work for Merial, a well run company, this is not good news. If you worked for the old Intervet, it also was well run, this is good news bad news. Good in that the saga of who do I work for is nearing an end. Bad in that they have now seen Raul's management. If you worked for legacy Schering this is of course bad news as you were hoping for new and better management. Raul is of course a chip off the Hasan block. If you work for Merck, you might be glad to be rid of another ex Schering executive team member.

condor said...

Thank you!

I've now highlighted yours -- posting it to the top of the page, with graphics -- I deeply appreciate your taking the time to post this!

Namaste -- and do stop back!