More than a year after being put up for sale, German generics firm ratiopharm is now said to have three serious suitors: generics giant Teva, Iceland's Actavis and Pfizer.
Prices touted for the company, part of the late industrialist Adolph Merckle's empire, top $4 billion (about €3 billion), or just under two times the company's €1.6 billion 2009 sales. Various reports suggest Pfizer CEO Jeffrey Kindler visited the company's Ulm headquarters March 5, with Teva having made its final bid presentation a few days before, and Actavis a day or two later. Ratiopharm is Germany's second-largest generics firm, behind Novartis' Hexal.
At first glance, it's hard to see why ratiopharm has attracted so much interest. The German generics market has come under serious pricing pressure since the government introduced rebate tender contracts between manufacturers and the country's health insurance funds in 2007 (1 'The Pink Sheet' DAILY, Aug. 3, 2009).