The level of UK govt involvement interest/concern/comment in the attempted take-over of Astrazeneca by US pharms company Pfizer has been noticeable even though they have stated that it is for shareholders to decide. Pfizer’s CEO Miller has taken a relatively unprecedented step by addressing his reasurrances to the PM.
On Friday the leader of the opposition Labour party, Ed Miliband, sent a letter to the prime minister saying there needs to be a “substantive assessment” of whether the bid is in the national interest.He also called for a “stronger public interest test” in takeover rules.
Now in a BBC interview this morning Miliband accuses Cameron of being a “cheerleader” for the takeover.
No other country in the world would be waving this bid through, nodding it through, on the basis of pretty weak assurances from Pfizer
On Friday, AstraZeneca rejected Pfizer’s latest offer which valued the UK firm at £63bln.The US company had raised the price it was offering for AstraZeneca to the equivalent of £50 a share.But Astra said the new terms offered were “inadequate, substantially undervalue AstraZeneca and are not a basis on which to engage with Pfizer”.
If the deal were to go through, it would be the biggest takeover of a UK company by a foreign firm and we’ve seen good demand for GBPUSD anticipating the forex requirement. But Friday’s rejection by Astrazeneca saw a small sell-off as we led into the US NFPs.
Expect further inquiry/political pressure to delay the deal ( in addition to any rejection on business terms) which should make traders/investors less gung-ho about diving in to front-run the potential GBP demand.
