Sanofi-Aventis will still proceed with hostile offer
Sanofi-Aventis’ position remains unchanged regarding a $18.5bn (£11.6bn) hostile offer for Genzyme, Sanofi chief executive Chris Viehbacher said yesterday.
“Our position was made very clear at the time we made the offer and nothing’s changed,” said Viehbacher yesterday when asked if anything had altered in his position since Sanofi denied floating the idea of an $80 per share offer for the US biotech.
On 4 October Sanofi-Aventis went directly to Genzyme shareholders with a cash offer of $69 a share, after Genzyme refused to open its books to friendly merger talks dismissing Sanofi’s initial offer as too low.
Three days later, Genzyme’s chief executive Henri Termeer said in a regulatory filing that Viehbacher proposed a deal price range of $69 to $80 per share at a joint chief executives meeting in late September, two weeks before it went hostile.