Dive Brief:
- Baxalta CEO Ludwig Hantson has told shareholders that a $30 billion takeover offer from Shire "significantly undervalues" his company.
- The offer represents about a 27% premium to Baxalta's stock price earlier this week.
- "At this point, our stock has not yet achieved a price level that appropriately reflects our company's value and prospects," he told shareholders.
Dive Insight:
Baxalta's only been trading as an spun-off company for five weeks, and Hantson says Shire is trying to take advantage of that fact.
"Shire opportunistically showed up a handful of days after we began trading as a new, independent company and then went public with its offer without warning after our board rejected the first and only proposal. This proposal does not reflect full and fair value for our shareholders," he said in remarks to shareholders earlier this week.
"In some respects, the nature of Shire’s interest in Baxalta is puzzling. Is it trying to opportunistically acquire our attractive hemophilia, immunology and growing oncology platforms without true synergies? We have an attractive set of franchises and it would be a shame to hand it over for a lowball valuation," Hantson said.
But he's not rejecting any takeover offer -- just this one. "We are not entrenched or intransigent, but given Shire’s proposal, our board made a considered and correct decision to not engage based on it," he told shareholders.