Bristol Myers Squibb (BMY)

[chmcnfunds]

Nothing new, but context:
_____________________________________________________
Buyout buzz swells for the giant Bristol-Myers after Carl Icahn makes an entrance, stage left

by john carroll
February 21, 2017 04:53 PM EST
Updated: 04:57 PM

Carl Icahn, the aging ac­tivist who’s prod­ded a se­ries of high-pro­file bio­pharma com­pa­nies into the arms of eager buy­ers, has taken a stake in the highly stressed Bris­tol-Myers Squibb, build­ing spec­u­la­tion that the trou­bled giant could be in line for a buy­out – as im­prob­a­ble as that may sound to many.

Bris­tol-Myers started the day by an­nounc­ing that it added three new di­rec­tors and struck a $2 bil­lion stock buy­back deal in a pact with Jana Part­ners, an­other ac­tivist which has been spurring Bris­tol-Myers to take ac­tion to get out of the rut it’s found it­self in.

Once the dar­ling of the check­point com­mu­nity, Merck last year leapfrogged Bris­tol-Myers on non-small cell lung can­cer with a se­ries of clin­i­cal ad­vances that still as­ton­ishes some long­time ob­servers of the field. Just days ago you could begin to hear the scut­tle­butt about take­out ru­mors, as the com­pany’s stock lan­guished in the wake of its set­backs.

Today, though, Bris­tol-Myers stock $BMY con­tin­ued a surge in after-mar­ket trad­ing after the Wall Street Jour­nal posted the news of Icahn’s ar­rival.

Once a widely re­spected/feared player in bio­pharma, Icahn and his team pushed Bio­gen to over­haul its ex­ec­u­tive suite, bring­ing in George Scan­gos as the com­pany made Tec­fidera its flag­ship ther­apy after ini­tially call­ing for a sale of the com­pany. He helped steer Im­Clone to a $6.5 bil­lion deal with Eli Lilly while push­ing Amylin back into Bris­tol-Myers arms in 2012.

Now 81, Icahn still packs plenty of clout when it comes to gen­er­at­ing fresh spec­u­la­tion about a deal. Bris­tol-Myers, though, has a mar­ket cap of $91 bil­lion, mak­ing it a mega­mar­ket tar­get that only a hand­ful of com­pa­nies could pull off. That won’t stop the spec­u­la­tion, though, as the big bio­pharma moves to the cen­ter of the M&A scene now that Icahn has en­tered, stage left.
___________________________________________
https://endpts.com/buyout-buzz-swells-for-the-giant-bristol-myers-after-carl-icahn-makes-an-entrance-stage-left/

BMY