Catal­ent had sev­er­al suit­ors, in­clud­ing an­oth­er of its busi­ness part­ners, be­fore No­vo won out

In 2022, about nine months be­fore No­vo Hold­ings first reached out to Catal­ent about a po­ten­tial deal, the con­tract man­u­fac­tur­er was in talks with an­oth­er com­pa­ny with which it had an “ex­ist­ing com­mer­cial re­la­tion­ship,” ac­cord­ing to a se­cu­ri­ties fil­ing with back­ground on the $16.5 bil­lion trans­ac­tion.

And the mys­te­ri­ous “Par­ty A” wasn’t the on­ly busi­ness part­ner that took a look, ac­cord­ing to the SEC fil­ing. In ad­di­tion to Par­ty A, a “Par­ty B” — an­oth­er “ex­ist­ing com­mer­cial re­la­tion­ship” of Catal­ent’s — took a look as well (though nev­er bid).

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