Pfizer on Monday announced the biggest pharmaceutical deal in history — $160 billion for Botox-maker Allergan.
“The proposed combination of Pfizer and Allergan will create a leading global pharmaceutical company with the strength to research, discover, and deliver more medicines and therapies to more people around the world,” Pfizer’s chairman and chief executive Ian Read said in a press release.
The deal calls for the merged company to maintain Allergan’s Irish domicile, which means the profits of the new company would be subject to corporation tax of 12.5%, much lower than the 35% Pfizer is currently subject to in the United States, according to the BBC. Pfizer had net income of $9.1 billion in 2014.
Merger activity in the pharmaceutical industry is heating up, as manufacturers struggle to cope with expiring patents on a number of major drugs, BBC said.
“The pharmaceutical sector, which has had over $220 billion of deals in the first half of 2015 alone, will be buoyed further by the proposed purchase of Allergan by Pfizer, the largest pharma deal ever at $160 billion, surpassing the $116 billion Pfizer paid for Warner Lambert in 2000,” Ketan Patel at EdenTree Investment Management told the BBC. “The deal is also the biggest [tax] inversion deal.”
Under the terms of the transaction, expected to be completed in the second half of 2016, Allergan shareholders would receive 11.3 shares in the new company for each of their Allergan shares, and Pfizer shareholders would receive one share for each of their Pfizer shares.
The merged company would be called Pfizer Plc, with Read as chief executive and chairman, and Allergan’s current CEO Brent Saunders as president and chief operating officer.
Pfizer said is expects the merger would see $2 billion in savings in the first three years of combined operation.