Bristol-Myers and Starboard Value spar over $74B Celgene buyout as shareholder vote looms
Bristol-Myers Squibb execs and Starboard Value are back at it today, exchanging broadsides for and against the $74 billion buyout.
There’s not much fresh material to pick over at this point. Bristol-Myers CEO Giovanni Caforio has been trying to bat back every criticism that Starboard and its allies have raised.
Image: Giovanni Caforio. AP IMAGES
Depending on who you listen to here, Bristol-Myers either:
Jefferies’ Michael Yee is one of several analysts who think this deal will get done, despite the criticism. In most major deals like this, where the execs at the buying side are dug in, the deal gets done. Starboard itself doesn’t control enough votes to stop it, by a long shot. But after Bristol’s biggest investor Wellington went rogue and came out against the deal, the odds began to change. And seeing influential groups like the Loncar fund detail their objections, the unthinkable became possible.
It’s just not probable, yet.