Whisky, se­crets, and code names: be­hind-the-scenes of Takeda's $62B Shire bid - Bloomberg

As it turned out, the March 28 state­ment that launched Take­da’s his­toric $62 bil­lion bid for Shire shook Take­da ex­ecs as much as it did the rest of the bio­phar­ma in­dus­try.

The Japan­ese drug­mak­er had as­sem­bled a se­cre­tive team to work on the deal, with plans to ap­proach Shire’s board by April 1, go­ing so far as to giv­ing the com­pa­nies code names in the fash­ion of Japan­ese whisky brands. Un­named in­sid­ers told Bloomberg that Take­da was dubbed Ya­maza­ki, the na­tion’s No. 1 sin­gle malt, while Shire was com­pared to a “se­duc­tive, blos­som­ing and enig­mat­ic” blend called Hi­bi­ki.

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