As the Daily Mail reports, dealers were speculating that GSK may face an approach from Roche of Switzerland or Johnson & Johnson of the US at about 1900p per share, valuing it at more than £92billion. In common with rivals, GSK has faced pressure from the strong pound and a need to develop new drugs as existing treatments face copy-cat competition.
The shares fell 22p to 1351p
by the close of trading on Monday, down from 1642p a share in mid-April. A
market source said: ‘People are hovering because of the vulnerability of the
group at this price.’ They're also hovering because pharma M&A is
still going gangbusters, even after a spate of large deals that included Actavis' buyout
of branded drugmaker Allergan and Glaxo's own asset swap with Novartis.
The logic for a J&J or Roche bid? Perhaps
not as strong as the case for a Pfizer buyout. True, J&J could add Glaxo's
joint venture with Novartis on consumer health to its own sizable OTC-drug
and consumer-products business. But J&J isn't into vaccines, and its
prescription drug business lacks a respiratory segment, which is GSK's major
pharma concern these days. Maybe J&J would like to be in those fields? Hmm.
Maybe.