American drug maker Pfizer (PFE) announced Monday that it was officially withdrawing its $119 billion takeover bid of AstraZenaca as the London-based pharmaceutical company remained firm in opposing the deal.
“Following the AstraZeneca board’s rejection of the proposal, Pfizer announces that it does not intend to make an offer for AstraZeneca,” the company said in a statement.
The decision to move on comes more than a week after Pfizer made a final offer which valued AstraZeneca at £55.00 ($95.52) per share, a 45% premium over the company’s PPS on the last day of trading before market speculation over a takeover began. AstraZeneca’s board said that Pfizer’s bid undervalued the company, and the 15% increase constituted only a minor improvement over the company’s previous offer.
“We continue to believe that our final proposal was compelling and represented full value for AstraZeneca based on the information that was available to us,” Pfizer Chief Executive Officer Ian Read said in the statement. “As we said from the start, the pursuit of this transaction was a potential enhancement to our existing strategy.”
Pfizer fell 0.57 percent to close $29.49 on May 23.
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