AstraZeneca rejects new Pfizer bid

[dipsydoodle]

Source: BBC News

UK drugs company AstraZeneca has rejected an improved "final" takeover offer from US drugs giant Pfizer.

Pfizer had made a new offer of £55 per share, valuing AstraZeneca at about £69bn.

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Pfizer planned to create the world's largest drug company, with its headquarters in New York, but based in the UK for tax purposes.

In a strategy known as "tax inversion" Pfizer could pay the UK corporate tax rate of 20%, rather than the 35% rate applied in the US, if it bought AstraZeneca.

That plan has proved controversial with unions and politicians, with AstraZeneca employing 6,700 people in the UK

Read more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-27466278

[sharp_stick]

1. I'm still betting on the corporate parasite

to go hostile. They want to run and hide from their tax debt and all they know how to do anymore is buy other companies, fire the employees and close the sites.

Pfizer should be making itself smaller by spinning off units but they refuse to do it. They no longer can sustain themselves with internal R&D so the only option they see is buying up a company that has a pipeline in place and then cutting costs.