PharMerica Falls After Omnicare Sued by U.S. to Block Takeover
PharMerica Corp. (PMC), the drug-supply company Omnicare Inc. (OCR) is targeting with a $440.8 million unsolicited takeover bid, fell the most in more than three months after U.S. regulators sued to block the deal.
Pharmerica fell 11 percent to $12.69, the biggest intraday decline since Oct. 4, at 9:49 a.m. in New York. The Federal Trade Commission said Jan. 27 that merging the first and second- largest drug suppliers to nursing homes would increase prices for Medicare recipients, passing on the costs to taxpayers.
PharMerica, based in Louisville, Kentucky, has said the $15- a-share bid price undervalued the company. The company said today in a statement that Covington, Kentucky-based Omnicare should drop the offer.
“We believed antitrust clearance would be difficult to achieve and, with that belief now confirmed, we hope that Omnicare will end its hostile pursuit of PharMerica,” Chief Executive Officer Gregory Weishar said in the statement.
Omnicare, which pursued the acquisition to save money through automation and scale amid U.S. cuts to health-care spending, fell 1.3 percent to $32.63.
To contact the reporter on this story: Sarah Frier in New York at sfrier1@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Reg Gale at rgale5@bloomberg.net
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