Millennium Comes to the Rescue

Genzyme’s (Ticker: GENZ) hostile take over attempt of AnorMED (Ticker: ANOR) became more interesting today. Millennium Pharmaceuticals (Ticker: MLNM) became the white knight and swooped in to save AnorMED from Genzyme. Millennium offered $12 per share ($515 million) versus Genzyme’s bid of $8.55 ($380 million) for AnorMED. I don’t think Genzyme will come in and place a higher bid. Millennium is really paying a big premium for this company and is going to eat up a big chunk of their cash. There’s no doubt that the company will have to go to the public market to raise more cash. This is a risky bet for Millennium. I hope Genzyme doesn’t enter a bidding war and just walk away from this deal. The market likes the fact that Genzyme may not complete this transaction. Take a look at the chart of Genzyme versus Millennium.