Pfizer Still Wants AstraZeneca After Bid Rejected

Pfizer Inc. (PFE) is back in the megamerger game.

The U.S. drugmaker proposed buying AstraZeneca Plc (AZN) for about 58.8 billion pounds ($98.7 billion) in what would rank as the industry’s biggest-ever takeover, surpassing Pfizer’s $64 billion purchase of Wyeth in 2009. AstraZeneca spurned the offer as too low, and Pfizer said it’s considering its options.

If AstraZeneca eventually agrees, a deal would create a company incorporated in the U.K. for tax purposes and run from New York. London-based AstraZeneca’s operations would be sewn into Pfizer’s three new business units.

Pfizer offered 46.61 pounds a share in cash and stock for AstraZeneca in January, and AstraZeneca declined to pursue negotiations, Pfizer said in a statement today. The proposal is about 14 percent above the April 25 close for AstraZeneca. The stock today climbed above that price, gaining the most in more than two decades.

For now, Pfizer is still trying to draw AstraZeneca into talks.

“We tried to get a mutual announcement to say we were in preliminary discussions,” Pfizer Chief Executive Officer Ian Read said on a conference call today. “AstraZeneca rebuffed that, which is why we were forced to make the announcement.”

If Pfizer is able to consummate the deal, it would be among the biggest ever U.S. company to leave the country’s border. Read said that while he hadn’t discussed that with the U.S. government, he was confident it could get done.

‘Significantly Undervalued’

Pfizer wants to reach an agreement that AstraZeneca’s board can endorse and is considering its options.

“Clearly the reason Pfizer has gone public is to try to force a deal,” said Mark Clark, an analyst at Deutsche Bank in London. “The price that AstraZeneca is willing to talk about is nowhere near 46 or they wouldn’t have been summarily dismissed.”

Pfizer’s January proposal “very significantly undervalued” AstraZeneca, the U.K. company said in a statement. AstraZeneca also was concerned that Pfizer wanted to pay 70 percent of the price in shares, AstraZeneca said. The company concluded that, absent a specific and attractive proposal, it was not appropriate to engage in discussions with Pfizer.’’

“They’re sellers, we’re buyers,” Read said. “Of course they’re going to say it’s undervalued.”