ISS Sides With Illumina, Recommends Rejecting Roche
This is getting interesting every day! I love this Idea! sell a company but before selling it split or spin off as another company with a future technology (Illumina). After a few years again sell or get acquired!
Citing vast future potential, ISS has sided with Illumina in the gene-sequencing company’s fight to hold off a hostile bid from Roche Holding.
The proxy advisor says shareholders should vote the Illumina board back into service, and reject Roche’s slate because the offer probably undervalues the future of Illumina.
Roche last week raised its offer for Illumina to $51 a share from $44.50, and called it fair and full. But Illumina shares immediately went above $51, and some in the market have pointed to $60 as the number to get the deal done.
Illumina rejected the offer, citing a report that compared the company to Apple and Illumina’s products to iPads. The company has argued that Roche’s bid came just after Illumina’s own shares had cratered on a bad quarter and that the Swiss drug giant was making an opportunistic bid to get the future of medicine on the cheap.
ISS agrees with that assessment. In a report, the advisor questions Roche’s use of a valuation tied to Illumina’s earnings, even as Roche calls it a historically high offer.
“As healthy as the current business and cash flows are, no one— Roche or public market investors—is interested in buying Illumina for its earning potential in the next twelve months, or on the strength of its earnings history over the last twelve months,” ISS writes.
ISS also applauded the actions of Illumina’s board, saying it had properly resisted the bid. The report says Illumina’s move to speed up the annual meeting for a shareholder vote “suggest confidence in the integrity” of its own positions.
The annual meeting vote is in two weeks, meaning there is still time for more letters and enthusiastic comments before this comes to a boil.
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