It’s what Bris­tol-My­ers ex­ecs aren’t say­ing that makes one key an­a­lyst won­der about a po­ten­tial buy­out of­fer, loom­ing Op­di­vo da­ta and 'Plan B'

Bris­tol-My­ers Squibb called a hur­ried ses­sion with sell-side an­a­lysts Fri­day morn­ing as part of their cam­paign to pre­vent the Cel­gene deal from un­rav­el­ing af­ter its largest in­vestor bolt­ed. Ex­ecs had some fa­mil­iar things to say about the bright side of the deal. But it’s what they wouldn’t say that got Wolfe’s savvy Tim An­der­son to raise some thorny is­sues.

As the an­a­lyst — who’s not a big fan of the Cel­gene deal — notes, Bris­tol-My­ers’ in­vestors have been grum­bling about this one.

Per our on­go­ing dis­cus­sions with share­hold­ers – and al­so per our pri­or in­vestor sen­ti­ment sur­vey – there con­tin­ues to be un­easi­ness about the mer­its of the trans­ac­tion and what the com­bined com­pa­ny will be ca­pa­ble of de­liv­er­ing to share­hold­ers if the deal in fact clos­es suc­cess­ful­ly.

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