Sanofi-Aventis has dismissed suggestions by bid target Genzyme that it privately dangled a higher price for the biotech firm, as a transatlantic take-over fight descended into an ill-tempered stand-off. Genzyme had said on Thursday that Sanofi's chief executive floated the possibility of paying as much as $80 per share for the US company at a meeting in September before it went hostile with a bid worth $69 a share.
The French pharmaceuticals giant disputed this account of events on Friday, but several analysts said the row highlighted expectations that it may have to raise its offer at least part of the way. "We offered no price range and Genzyme continued to refuse to engage with us on discussions on valuations," Sanofi's chief spokesman Jean-Marc Podvin said.
However, Genzyme's shares rose to a year-high of $73.05 in after-hours US trading, more than $4 above Sanofi's current offer of $69, which values the business at $18.5 billion. Sanofi's shares were down 0.2 percent in Paris at 48.95 euros by 1003 GMT, when the Stoxx 600 European drugs sector index was off 0.1 percent.
Sanofi wants to add Genzyme, the world's largest maker of drugs for rare genetic diseases, to its portfolio to help drive earnings growth through a "cliff" of patent expiries on established blockbuster drugs. The latest twist in the fight centres on what exactly happened when the chief executives met in the United States on September 20.
That in turn could have an impact on how quickly the bid battle is resolved, with a continued hostile campaign likely to last well into 2011, according to many analysts. According to a Genzyme securities filing, Sanofi's chief executive Chris Viehbacher proposed on that date to Henri Termeer, his counterpart at Genzyme, that the two sides discuss a deal price range of $69 to $80 per share.
Viehbacher, according to Genzyme, said the price range was "manageable" but doubted he could reach the higher end based on his current understanding of the company's business. Two weeks after the meeting, France's Sanofi took its $69 per share offer directly to Genzyme shareholders.
But Sanofi denied putting any kind of offer on the table. "We strongly disagree with Genzyme's characterisation of the September 20 meeting between the CEOs," Podvin said. "At that meeting we made a variety of efforts to move the process forwards, including discussing the merits of our $69 per share offer and we tried to understand if media reports about Genzyme's price expectations were accurate," Sanofi's spokesman added. Industry analysts have consistently said Viehbacher will have to raise his offer to win Genzyme.
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