Allergan has agreed to a whopping $66-billion takeover from Actavis, effectively laying to rest repeated attempts by Valeant to purchase the firm.
The Botox-maker said earlier today that it has accepted Actavis’ $219-per share bid, which works out at about $6 billion more than what was on the table from Valeant.
Bowing out of the race, Valeant, which has made repeated and hostile moves on Allergan since April, said it couldn’t justify paying such a high price.
The marriage between Allergan and Actavis, however, should create “the fastest growing and most dynamic growth pharmaceutical company in global healthcare,” and, with pro forma revenues in excess of $23 billion on the cards for 2015, one of the world’s top 10 global pharmaceutical companies (by sales).
“With this combination, we plan to transform the growth profile of our pharmaceutical business and have the ability to generate organic revenue growth at a compound annual growth rate of at least 10 percent for the foreseeable future,” said Actavis chief Brent Saunders.
The combination should generate strong free cash flow of more than $8 billion in 2016 and substantial growth thereafter, facilitating “the rapid repayment of debt”, and is expected to result in double-digit accretion to non-GAAP earnings within the first 12 months, he added.
Also, analysts are estimating that the move will help trim Actavis’ tax bill by $240 million to $370 million in 2015, according to the Wall Street Journal, given that the firm relocated to Ireland last year (where there is a lower tax rate than in the US) through its purchase of Warner Chilcott.
