King Pharmaceuticals ($KG) shareholders aren't standing around protesting Pfizer's ($PFE) takeover offer for the company. They've taken their fight directly to court--six times. And now, a court in Tennessee has consolidated those six investor suits in one class-action proceeding seeking to block the merger.
Pfizer said last month that it had agreed to buy King for $14.25 per share, or about $3.6 billion. That was $4 more than the previous day's closing price, or a 39 percent premium. Apparently, King shareholders don't think that's enough; the lawsuits claim that King's board violated its fiduciary duty when it agreed to Pfizer's price.
The investors say King's board didn't fully account for the sales and profit potential of three experimental drugs, Embeda, Remoxy and Accurox. To their mind, Pfizer will get to "reap benefits" when those drugs hit the market, while cashed-out shareholders will be "denied those same benefits," one of the suits claims.
- read the story at TriCities.com