Pfizer, Allergan reach US$160B deal to create a pharmaceutical giant
From CTV News
Pfizer and Allergan are joining in the biggest buyout of the year, a US$160-billion stock deal that will create the world’s largest drugmaker. It’s also the largest so-called inversion, where an American corporation combines with a company headquartered in a country with a lower corporate tax rate, saving potentially millions each year in U.S. taxes.
Pfizer, which makes the cholesterol fighter Lipitor, will keep its global operational headquarters in New York. But the drugmaker will combine with Botox-maker Allergan as a company that will be called Pfizer Plc. That company would have its legal domicile and principal executive offices in Ireland.
Aside from a lower tax bill, the Allergan acquisition would give Pfizer brand-name medicines for eye conditions, infections and heart disease. They would join Pfizer’s extensive portfolio of vaccines and drugs for cancer, pain, erectile dysfunction and other conditions. The deal would enable Pfizer, the world’s second-biggest drugmaker by revenue, to surpass Switzerland’s Novartis AG and regain the industry’s top spot.