![\"Witty\"](\"http:\/\/s.wsj.net\/media\/witty_D_20100120165104.jpg\")
GlaxoSmithKline CEO Andrew Witty swung by Health Blog HQ this week. Given all the M&A action in the industry in the past year (Pfizer-Wyeth & Merck-Schering Plough, to name a few biggies), we asked him about GSK’s acquisition strategy. <\/p>\nGlaxoSmithKline CEO Andrew Witty swung by Health Blog HQ this week. Given all the M&A action in the industry in the past year (Pfizer-Wyeth & Merck-Schering Plough, to name a few biggies), we asked him about GSK’s acquisition strategy. <\/p>\n
“We’re not in the market for traditional, large-scale, premium acquisitions,” he said.<\/p>\n
He didn’t focus on the pipeline drugs or growing franchises that acquirers often cite. Instead, he waded into the ramifications of making a big acquisition at a moment when many segments of the industry are contracting.<\/p>\n
“People are buying companies and taking costs down,” he said. “You’re paying a 30% or 35% premium to have the opportunity to fire people.”<\/p>\n
Instead, he’s looking for “bolt-on acquisitions” — under $5 billion — that add to growing businesses such as vaccines or consumer products, or to key emerging markets. And even those have to be at a the right price; the company walked away<\/a> from a few deals in the second quarter of last year, because they were too expensive.<\/p>\n Photo: Associated Press<\/em><\/p>\n GlaxoSmithKline CEO Andrew Witty swung by Health Blog HQ this week. Given all the M&A action in the industry in the past year (Pfizer-Wyeth & Merck-Schering Plough, to name a few biggies), we asked him about GSK’s acquisition strategy. “We’re not in the market for traditional, large-scale, premium acquisitions,” he said. He didn’t focus on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":650,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-210017","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210017","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/650"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=210017"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210017\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=210017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=210017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=210017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/img><\/a>
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