Kaizan,
My thoughts are that competitive bidding for the C would be more along the lines of a buyout. This appears to be headed to a more structured transaction with multiple partners for JVs.
There are three major deal groupings in play: The ownership rights to L; the partnership rights for L; and everything to do with the rights for Direct. That’s a lot of moving pieces and assets in play. The C has some role in all of that, plus a role in satisfying the price discovery requirements for an immediate listing.
One thought that comes to mind from your question is how do the BP participants involved in JV avoid anti-trust issues. For instance, if Merck and BMY had any discussions related to agreeing separate partnership rather than bidding against one another for a buyout, that might trigger a price fixing isolation. My guess is LP & LG proposed the conceptual structure for multiple partners, then everyone worked from that same sheet of music.
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