Jazz CEO Bruce Cozadd cam­paigned for 6 months to buy GW Phar­ma. A 90% pre­mi­um sealed the deal — along with $17.6M in ‘re­ten­tion’ in­cen­tives

Jazz CEO Bruce Cozadd didn’t beat around the bush.

In his first video meet­ing with GW Phar­ma chief Justin Gov­er last Ju­ly 8, he of­fered to pay $172 a share to get the com­pa­ny, which had beat­en the odds in get­ting its re­mark­able cannabi­noid drug Epid­i­olex across the reg­u­la­to­ry fin­ish line for epilep­sy. GW’s stock closed at $129 that day.

Cozadd had al­ready done his home­work on the fi­nanc­ing to make sure he could swing it the way he want­ed. He just need­ed to do some due dili­gence be­fore mak­ing the non-bind­ing bid firm.

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