Roche Made US$43.7B Bid For Remaining Genentech Shares

Filed in archive Corporate and Industrial News on July 21, 2008

Currently, leading healthcare company Roche already owns 55.9% of all of Genetech's outstanding shares. Now Roche has offered a bid of US$43.7 billion to the rest of Genentech that it doesn't own.

Genentech is a leading biotechnology company specializing in oncology drug. The combined powers as reported aims to 'foster innovation' for the healthcare industry.

According to Franz Humer, Chairman of the Board of Roche:

"Our long and successful participation in Genentech has provided great benefits to both of our companies and shareholders. It has resulted in one of the biggest success stories in the healthcare industry. Roche's significant investment in Genentech over many years has helped it to focus on innovation and long-term projects, leading to some of the most important breakthroughs in the treatment of cancer and other life-threatening diseases.

The transaction will create a unique opportunity to evolve Roche's hub-and-spoke model into a structure that allows us to strengthen the focus on innovation and accelerate the search for new solutions for unmet medical needs. Combining the strengths of Roche and Genentech will create significant value and result in benefits for patients, employees and shareholders."

Of course, behind the scenes, this is also a financial business move.

Read the full report from Roche press release.