Could Take­da pull off a $50B-plus Shire takeover? Maybe, but an­a­lysts and in­vestors have their doubts if they should

The news bright and ear­ly Wednes­day morn­ing that Take­da $TKPYY was plan­ning to make a run at Shire $SH­PG caused more than a lit­tle head scratch­ing among some of the an­a­lysts cov­er­ing these com­pa­nies. And it al­so caused some fret­ting among the Japan­ese com­pa­ny’s in­vestors, who took Take­da’s share price down 7% on Thurs­day.

What kind of price makes sense for Shire, which has had its share price beat­en down over the past year? And how should Take­da go about buy­ing a com­pa­ny with a some­what larg­er mar­ket cap, where the pre­mi­um ac­qui­si­tion price will like­ly pass $50 bil­lion?

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