Sanofi-Aventis ($SNY) and Genzyme ($GENZ) may have signed a confidentiality agreement, but sources close to the potential deal are leaking numbers like crazy. Although the figures vary slightly from source to source, it's coalescing around a total offer of $77 per share, including some proportion of future payments based on performance.
Bloomberg's sources offered two scenarios. One is a cash payment of about $2 more than Sanofi's initial $69-per-share bid, plus $5 to $6 in contingent value rights. Another, apparently favored by Genzyme, comprises a cash payment of up to $74 to $75 with a CVR worth about $2. How the final offer looks depends in part on Sanofi's inspection of the Genzyme plant in Allston, Massachusetts. That's the facility that was shuttered for months because of viral contamination.
Meanwhile, the New York Times reports that Sanofi will add "a few dollars" to the up-front cash, and the offer will also include a CVR that could be worth as much as $6, provided sales of Genzyme's potential multiple sclerosis drug Lemtrada reach the company's multibillion-dollar projections. Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal's sources put the cash bid at around $74, with a CVR worth $2 at first, but as much as $6 if top sales targets are met.
Obviously, Genzyme would prefer more cash up front, whereas Sanofi would prefer to hedge its bets with a lower cash bid and a higher pay-for-performance CVR. Due diligence proceeds; negotiations continue.
- see the Bloomberg piece
- get more from the NYT
- check out the WSJ story
ALSO: Genzyme said it has agreed to sell its pharmaceutical intermediates business to a unit of International Chemical Investors Group. Report