Tuesday, May 20, 2014

"From The Sublime, To The Ridiculous" Dept.: Mer-fizer, Mizer Or Pferk? Not Even Worth Discussing!


With the "news vacuum" created by the sudden (but patently obvious -- for weeks now) failure of Ian C. Read's bid for AstraZeneca, I suppose it was inevitable that some journalist would try to fill the void.

BusinessWeek/Bloomberg is running a piece this morning purportedly recounting Pfizer acquires Merck rumors (in part). Sooner pigs should fly. It isn't worth even a moment's serious consideration for millions of reasons, but here are two world-beaters: (i) Mr. Read was after the financial engineering of tax inversion -- a Merck deal wouldn't EVER offer that, and (ii) the antitrust issues of No. 2 buying No. 5 are overwhelming. But it allows me to display some graphical proclivities -- so see the parody at right. That's all this story is about, this morning -- a bit of frolic in Photoshop. Fun parody graphics. More (hopefully clever graphics) later, time permitting. Here's the bit -- great for grins:

. . . .It’s unclear how far the examinations of Merck and Bristol-Myers went, or if they were just war-gaming by the company’s deals team, the two former Pfizer executives said. Steve Cragle, a spokesman for Whitehouse Station, New Jersey-based Merck and Laura Hortas, a spokeswoman for New York-based Bristol-Myers, declined to comment.

Neither company, though, offers what AstraZeneca did -- a chance to legally relocate to the U.K. to take advantage of that country’s lower tax rate, or to deploy a huge chest of cash stuck overseas and out of the reach of U.S. tax law. . . .


Seriously? Get a grip. Go out and have an adventure today -- and be excellent to one another!







UPDATED: One more -- for grins:

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Not to give any credence to the rumor piece but there is a German Merck that is oft confused/ used interchangeably with Whitehouse Merck. If a tax inversion is the driving reason, German Merck could make sense, on some level.

Condor said...

Great one! I love it!

Right you are about KGgA!

However -- that one is... Too small by half!

You see Pfizer needs a company as target where more than 20 per cent of target's shareholders own the resulting merged entity -- under US Tax rules for qualifying inversions.

That means they need a very big target -- something at least 2/3rds Pfizer's size....

So -- ain't gonna happen! But I love the level of engagement here!

Do stop back!

Namaste