Smith & Nephew gains 4% on report of Biomet merger talks
The bid intrigue surrounding Smith and Nephew refuses to die down, with talk of interest from US rival Biomet helping push the UK company’s shares up nearly 4%.
To recap, S&N was said to have received and rejected a 750p a share offer from Johnson & Johnson before Christmas, although neither side has seen fit to inform the market as to the truth of the matter. Since then it seems clear that S&N is in play, with analysts and investors scouting round to find other possible bidders. Stryker is one often mentioned, as is private equity owned Biomet.
Today came a report that Biomet was set to begin informal talks with S&N about a £15bn merger, although since Biomet has high levels of debt, any deal would be unlikely to be a cash offer and would require a complicated structure to make the sums add up.
Again there has been no response - yet - from any of the companies involved, but the report has helped push S&N shares 25.5p higher to 710p.
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