- Merck Co. is planning to buy Acceleron Pharma Inc. after Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. agreed to buy the biotechnology company for $11.5 billion, according to people with knowledge of the matter.
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Acceleron is Bristol-Myers s biggest shareholder with an 11.5% stake that it inherited when it bought Celgene Corp. in 2019. Selling that stake will bring Merck deal closer to completion.
Acceleron needs approval from a majority of Merck shareholders to close its tender offer for all of the company s shares, among other conditions, according to a Sept. 30 statement.
Representatives for Bristol-Myers and Acceleron, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, declined to comment.
Another Acceleron investor, Avoro Capital, which holds about 7% of Acceleron s stock, said Sept. 30 that Merck s deal drastically undervalues the biotechnology firm, adding that it would engage with management and other investors to identify a better path forward. Hedge fund Darwin Global, which said it owns 3.8% of Acceleron s stock, earlier Wednesday urged shareholders not to tender their shares. Another shareholder, Holocene Advisors, said last week that it didn t plan to tender its shares.
After the Merck deal was announced, speculators and analysts wondered whether Acceleron would receive a higher offer from someone else.
To the extent BMY was part of a process, it is plausible it did not have interest in buying XLRN, UBS Group AG s special situations team wrote in an Oct. 1 report, referring to the companies by their stock symbols. That does not necessarily imply that it would support an acquisition of XLRN by a third party at any price it could prefer to hold it as an investor Acceleron engaged with several companies including Bristol-Myers to gauge interest in a potential acquisition before signing with Merck, Bloomberg reported this month. At least two potential buyers decided against bidding because of the price.
Acceleron has royalty agreements with Bristol-Myers that aren t affected by its decision to tender its shares, according to a person familiar with the mater.
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