Hmm...know why do you think Francois Menard is visiting Actavis today??..I'm sure it is just a friendly visit...LOL...NOT...deep pockets..
The Simpson's - Quote - “Attention workers, we have completed our evaluation of the plant. We regret to announce the following lay-offs, which I will read in alphabetical order... Simpson, Homer…. That is all.” http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/03/21/us-actavis-watson-idUSBRE82K0ZK20120321
Less competition = higher prices for us Weren’t Generics supposed to be the ‘safety valve’ against the high cost of Branded drugs? Generics, the low cost alternative, to high drug prices. Now with these Pharma consolidations coming to Generic companies, we can say good-bye to low prices. The Watson/Actavis merger is just another in a long line of Generic mergers i.e. Teva Pharmaceutical acquired Barr for $7.46 billion, Sun Pharm buys Taro, Par buys Anchen, Mylan acquires Merck generics and so forth. Of course the FTC (Federal Trade Commission) will bless this merger. The FTC has been gutted and is now toothless. They are nothing more than a rubber stamp for US corporations & all mergers. Less competition always means higher prices for you and I. Being that the US government is the largest purchaser of generic drugs, you would think the government block would block these mergers? Their lobbyists are just too powerful.
Watson set this whole thing up a long time ago…. Watson already knows a great deal about Actavis, due to the fact that one of their current employees used to be CEO of Actavis when it was based in Iceland. Sigurdur Oli Olafsson joined Watson as head of global generics in September 2010, with a responsibility for expanding the company in non-US markets. Sigurdur has gotten a total of 54,431 Watson shares at zero cost (Sept 1, 2010 (25,000 shares), on March 2, 2011 ( 10,851 shares) and March 8, 2012 (18,580 shares)). At a current price of $65.00 per share times 54,431 shares = $3,538,015. It tells me that Watson hired Sigurdur with the task of convincing Actavis board to sell out to Watson. So Actavis must have been in the sights of Watson for a long time. They throw $3.5 million to Sigurdur so he can snag Actavis for them. As Sigurdur’s last task at Actavis before he left for Watson, he personally hired his replacement at Actavis, the current CEO Claudio Albrecht. So Sigurdur installs Claudio to ensure the new CEO is open to a takeover. While Actavis is a privately held company, all top executives (including Claudio) have “change of control” clauses which gives them a huge windfall. Also they are given ‘shares’ in the company which could be used if Actavis ever went public. Now those shares will be converted to Watson shares. In essence, Claudio and his executive friends will make million and million on this deal. Not bad considering he was only CEO for 15 months. Björgólfur Thor Björgólfsson - Two of Björgólfur's companies, Landsbanki and Straumur, left the Icelandic people with several billions of dollars in debt, when they went bankrupt following the Icelandic Financial crisis. They were taken over by the Icelandic government and lost billions for outside account holders, namely thousands of British citizens. Novator, the investment vehicle of Icelandic entrepreneur Thor Bjorgolfsson, owns 80% of Actavis. It was the only profitable piece of Novator. Due to his irresponsible behavior and mismanagement of his banks, he is giving up Actavis to Watson who will chop it up and strip all value. Sigurdur, Claudio & Thor conspired to hand deliver Actavis to Watson for a muli-million dollar windfall for themselves leaving a trail of empty factories and thousands people of unemployed. With all these mergers and corporate raiders, pretty soon New Jersey will be like other depressed areas of the country. I lost count of all the layoffs in the last couple of years - Wyeth, Schering-Plough, Johnson & Johnson layoffs due to recalls and a whole range of others. We are destroying the middle-class. Are we going to need a Pharma Bail-out soon??
Good news, our next POA will be in Iceland. I here they rent bathing suits for those that want to indulge in the Blue Lagoon. I'm in!!!!!
Ha Ha - Lay-offs coming soon to Watson. Don’t forget Actavis has a sales force too. So Watson will pick the best reps from among the two companies. That means lay-offs on both sides. Same goes for all departments. These mergers are a time when companies get the pick of the litter and shore up personnel. For all redundant positions, HR will do a comparison between the Actavis and Watson employee. There will be no company loyalty so if Watson thinks an Actavis person can do the same job better, they will drop the Watson person and keep the Actavis one. These mergers are a great opportunity to drop the low performers from the inside Watson. Chaos and uncertainty rules throughout as no one knows who is going to get the ax. You don’t know it yet, but Welcome to Corporate Survivor! Learn to Outwit, Outplay, Outlast your fellow employees with the grand prize of being able to keep your lousy soul-sucking jobs. Muahahaha!!! PS - I'd also post this on Actavis' thread, but they don't have one. Losers!
Can someone tell me why we are buying Actavis which will only saddle us with massive debt and dilute our shares with very little in return. Sure the stock price shot up a few points on the initial news, but the stock will crash and burn soon after this merger is consummated. All reports state that most of Actavis’ US business is duplicative of Watson’s. Reports are we are going to buy Actavis’ US factories as part of the deal and just close them incurring huge severance payouts, environmental charges (those factories are old so I am sure it’s a superfund nightmare) and sell the building for pennies on the dollars. Actavis has close to zero presence in Latin America, Middle East, Asia and Australia. Therefore, the only real reason we want Actavis is their Eastern European business, an area that is not growing. There is zero growth in that segment of the market in the number of units sold and prices are depressed due to austerity fiscal measures of those countries and their debt crises. Plus didn’t we already expand our European presence with the acquisition of Specifar for $562 million? Plus we already made purchases of Arrow Group for $1.75 billion in 2009, and Andrx for $1.9 billion in 2006. If Specifar didn’t get us an adequate European presence, can’t we make small purchase of other small European firms instead? Now we are spending $6.6 Billion on company whose only value to us is their European segment, a stagnant market. Its like buying a whole new car when you only wanted was new tires. There must be a reason why Mylan looked at Actavis and chose to walk way. Also Aventis and Pfizer looked at Actavis years ago and also passed. The acquisition of Actavis would be super complex and take years to integrate, if at all. This takeover would be a disaster for Watson. A huge waste of time, energy and resources. Paul M. Bisaro and the board are thinking they are brilliant Pfizer-type executives who can do all these complicated mergers. They are not. They will end up making this a bloated, unmanageable hodge podge of a company. They are going to destroy it, but of course, get golden parachutes before the s**t hits the fan. I look at this and see the AOL-Time Warner merger of the Pharma industry. Anyone agree/disagree???
Watson is greatly overpaying for Actavis. While Actavis is private, some basic financials have been disclosed by their CEO Claudio Albrecht. He stated (and reports indicate) that 2/3 of Actavis business is European. Actavis posted €103 million ($136 million) in net income on €1.38 billion in revenue. Of the $136M total net income, the European piece is $90M (2/3 of $136M) and US is $45M (1/3 Of $136M). Watson only needs the Ex-US business since they don’t currently sell product in Europe. Most of Actavis’ US business is duplicative so all their US factories will be sold off along with duplicate ANDA’s. Watson does not want nor does it need Actavis’ US portion. It only wants the European business. Actavis operates in Bulgaria, Russia, the Ukraine and Romania. This is the reason for buying Actavis, which is to get into the European market. Reports indicate a purchase price of $7.0 Billion with deal structure of $4 billion in debt and $3 billion in equity. It does not make sense to spend $7 billion for $90M yearly net income. Also, the European market area is stagnant and not growing. Actavis is severely in debt and is under increasing pressure from their major creditor Deutsche Bank. Their debt is so huge, Deutsch has a seat on Actavis’ board and approves all business decisions. If anything, we should be getting Actavis for a steep discount, but we are being played for suckers. Sigurdur Oli Olafsson, who came to Watson from Actavis has sweet talked Watson’s board & CEO into taking on this mammoth company for such a high price. The only ones benefiting are the executives and Actavis’ owner Björgólfur Thor Björgólfsson, the Iclandic billionaire. Watson will pay with $4 billion debt & $3 billion equity. It will ultimately be a drag on the company and dilute the shares. Its overpriced.
Does anyone think the stock price will go higher when they announce the Actavis take-over. Or do you think any raise in the price attributable to the take-over has already been accounted for when Reuters reported that talks were taking place. The formal take-over announcement is scheduled for this week or next at the latest, as reported by Reuters.
Heard we are getting a new name. With the take-over of Actavis, Watson has decided now is a good time to change the name of the company. It has retained a third party to come up with a new one. Thats a lot of letterheads they have to change. You know if you combine the letters of Watson and Actavis you get 'Paul is Dead'. Weird right?? Come on and give your suggestions. I vote Wac-tavis or Actson. You know the Name Consultants are reading this forum. They will just use one of our suggestions and then pocket their $500k fee.
Watson is currently composed of two groups. There is an "in-crowd" composed of former Barr folks, and a coming influx of former Actavis folks. Then there are the "outcasts" composed of long time Watson employees, who helped to build the company into the powerhouse it is today. With few exceptions, the "in-crowd" is composed of a bunch of incapable fools that were lucky enough to follow someone who needs a trusted inner-circle, because PB is weak, has a poor self image, and is too insecure to make new friends or trust new colleagues. As a result, the "outcasts" are doomed. Their earlier contributions have been minimalized, and new ideas are negated, second-guessed, and over-ruled. They are clinging on for dear life, and do not have a prayer. That is why some long time VPs, Directors, etc., will be let go after the merger, while Actavis folks will take their roles. These folks that are leaving are probably relieved to know how and when it is going to get them, because they all know it is only a matter of time. The new name will be Barrctavis.
The real truth is that the people who built the company were terminated years ago by the unethical, immoral scumbags remaining who take credit for that progress. The outcast scumbags deserve whatever they receive and hopefully will be looking for a place under the bridge next to those victims they helped ship there before their own demise, which cannot come soon enough. Perhaps they will receive a week's pay for every year they infected the place which is more than they deserve.
The Actavis deal is half-way finished. (see Reuters below) The EU has approved the acqusitition and we are now waiting on the US FTC to bless it. I see the stock price going to $100 shortly after take-over. Yeah Baby!! (Reuters) - U.S. drugmaker Watson Pharmaceuticals Inc (WPI.N) secured EU regulatory clearance on Friday to buy Swiss peer Actavis Group for at least 4.25 billion euros ($5.53 billion) to reinforce its international reach. Watson, one of the world's biggest suppliers of generic drugs, said in April that the deal would immediately boost earnings. It forecast synergies of more than $300 million within three years. The European Commission said in a statement that the deal would not hurt competition. "The investigation showed that despite significant changes in the competitive situation in some of the markets, a sufficient number of credible and strong competitors will continue to exercise a competitive constraint on the merged entity," the EU watchdog said.
Well, it's official. The "new" company name is Actavis now appearing in a screaming lime green color and block leterring with a child's version of the letters AW above it comprised of orange green and blue colors. Wonder how much they paid somebody to get this creative? Good way to show that you're a world class company...............
