They say 40% upside possible, that is on today's tax codes. So I still think a buyout is more likely than not. Most mega mergers are done at a 30% premium or higher.
Your thoughts on no deal prior to tax reform and tax holiday make sense but rumors of a buyout have been circulating since Febuary. Those models would have had to be done on current tax law. Of course they could then run models on various scenarios with different corporate tax rates. But what is bankable is what we have today.
PFE, Roche and GILD are the big names thrown about, but going back to the Febuary articles it was primarily PFE. GILD is useless, they do nothing but print money and buyback shares. GILD is in the best cash position for a mega merger but I think they are all talk and may not have the experience of integrating all the synergies and administration of a mega merge.
PFE and Roche do have that experience. PFE has lost on 2 mega mergers and is due for one. While the 2 misses largely centered around tax inversion they are due.
The negatives is a drag of no real big deals in the last 18 months, even the Medivation buy was peanuts to PFE and should be noted centered around oncology. PFE portfolio is over 50% oncology now and now that cancer drugs are becoming customized the potential is enormous.
A quick reading of the PFE CEO's comments during analysts Q&A supports your opinion that no big deals until tax reform. Reading very closely though my takeaway is targets have been identified and when the time is right swift action will be taken.
So, my take is that if they are going to d a deal it will be before tax reform. Tax reform will make any US based company value rise. So it doesn't matter what the target company is, if a Company has balls the time to make a deal is before tax reform and when a stock price is lagging.
This assumes the model of buying BMY works, because if it doesn't work taxes do not matter. But from everything I have read BMY seems to be an excellent opportunity. Biogen to.
The negatives to mega deal is not tax reform in my opinion, it will be the synergies are great enough, interest rate hikes and BMY cooperating. BMY CEO just became Chairman also but a friend of mine who put multi billion dollar deals together says if the price is right they will sell.
