Merck KGaA corporate finance executive Uta Kemmerich-Keil said her company is taking a break from big deals as it pauses to integrate Millipore, which it purchased for $6 billion earlier this year. "You will not see us involved in transactions of (Millipore's) size in the short term," the exec said at an event, as quoted by Reuters. The buyout was Merck's biggest since its $13.7 billion purchase of Serono in 2007.
The Millipore buyout boosted Merck's chemicals business; that division is now expected to make up 35 percent of the German company's business, up from 25 percent before the deal. The deal helped Merck diversify away from pharma products into an area that's not subject to the uncertainties of drug development. In her comments, Kemmerich-Keil did not indicate when Merck's appetite for big deals would return.
- check out the Reuters brief