Roche stays mum about FTC, CMA re­views as $4.3B Spark deal faces yet an­oth­er de­lay. What's up?

Just what ex­act­ly is hold­ing up Roche’s $4.3 bil­lion ac­qui­si­tion of Spark Ther­a­peu­tics?

That’s the ques­tion that Spark in­vestors are pon­der­ing as the Swiss drug­mak­er an­nounced ex­ten­sion #6 of their ten­der of­fer to let an­titrust watch­dogs from both sides of the At­lantic com­plete their re­views.

The new dead­line for Spark share­hold­ers is now Oc­to­ber 1.

The US Fed­er­al Trade Com­mis­sion be­gan its as­sess­ment soon af­ter the deal was an­nounced in Feb­ru­ary — a stan­dard prac­tice — but alarmed in­vestors by re­peat­ed re­quests for more in­for­ma­tion. And in June the UK Com­pe­ti­tion and Mar­kets Au­thor­i­ty launched their own probe, height­en­ing anx­i­ety about the fate of the deal and po­ten­tial di­vesti­tures.

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