Summary
- BMY is planning to acquire CELG, but critics have emerged, often saying that BMY should sell itself.
- However, it is not clear to me that many companies can or would acquire BMY except on the cheap.
- That point may help to immunize BMY from seeing its shareholders vote the deal down.
- GILD, PFE and JNJ strike me as the only logical buyers for BMY, GILD being potentially the most motivated; but all potential deals have issues.
Who wants BMS?
The proposition that there are acquirers who want to own Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMY) at a notably higher price than the current $52-53 trading range seems to be taken for granted. As Starboard Value LP said in a recent open letter to BMY shareholders:
There is a better path forward for Bristol-Myers, either as a more profitable standalone company with a more focused, lower-risk strategy, or in a potential sale of the whole Company.
To be clear, many commenters probably have more inside knowledge of just what is going on in the R&D department of BMY than I do. So I'm not going to argue about whether BMY should have spent $4B, $5 B or $6 B on R&D one year or another, or whether its corporate headcount is bloated. (I offer no criticisms in either respect.)
