Elanco Buys Bayer’s Animal Health Unit, Gaining Scale and Greater Exposure to the Humanization of Pets” Trend”

Image Shown: Shares of Elanco Animal Health Inc (ELAN) sold off after the company announced on August 20 it was acquiring Bayer AG’s (BAYRY) animal health unit through a cash and deal stock deal worth $7.6 billion at the time the deal was announced. By Callum Turcan On August 20, Elanco Animal Health Inc (ELAN) agreed to acquire Bayer AG’s (BAYRY) animal health unit for $7.6 billion (at the time the deal was announced) through a cash and stock deal. That includes $5.3 billion in cash and $2.3 billion in stock, keeping in mind shares of ELAN initially shifted lower after the news. Bayer plans to exit its stake in Elanco over time as management seeks to rebuild the company’s … Read more

J&J Beats Low Expectations, Revises Guidance Upward

Image Source: Johnson & Johnson Johnson & Johnson issued updated guidance for 2019 that called for stronger adjusted sales and EPS growth than previously expected, which along with earnings that beat low expectations was enough to send shares up over 1% on the day, April 16. By Callum Turcan Embattled medical giant Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) posted first quarter earnings for 2019, which the market clearly liked as shares of JNJ were bid up by 1.1% on April 16. We include the company in both the simulated Dividend Growth Newsletter portfolio and the simulated Best Ideas Newsletter portfolio. The medical giant is active in the pharmaceuticals, medical device, and packaged consumer goods segments of the healthcare world. As of this … Read more

Follow Up on Loxo Oncology, Clovis Oncology, and Nevro

We like to write about a wide range of ideas in the financial markets, even if such ideas may be well beyond the high end of our own risk spectrum. Our writings on the smaller, high-growth (and riskier) ideas in healthcare/biotech, for example, remain an attempt to draw attention to some of the fantastic innovation helping to reshape treatment paradigms. Let’s follow up on some of the high-risk companies in the healthcare/biotech arena that we previously highlighted. By Alexander J. Poulos Loxo Oncology Scores a Major Partnership Image shown: Loxo is bouncing off of support levels following its “gap higher” earlier this year. This looks bullish. Chart as of December 10. In July of this year, we provided a detailed … Read more

A Review of Johnson and Johnson’s Pharmaceutical Division

Image Source: J&J Let’s take a deep dive into Johnson and Johnson’s pharmaceutical division Janssen Pharmaceuticals. Janssen traditionally serves as an area of clinical innovation adding an element of growth to the more stable product categories such as consumer health. However, there may be a few cracks in the Janssen revenue stream that could make growth at J&J harder to come by over the next few years. By Alexander J. Poulos Overview The venerable Johnson and Johnson (JNJ) has earned the sterling reputation that the firm has built over the countless decades of steady performance. J&J is a bedrock of the health care sector sporting a sterling credit rating along with the ability to seemingly consistently churn out revenue and … Read more

Potash-Agrium Deal Will be Subject to Growing Regulatory Scrutiny

Image Source: Bruce Guenter By Kris Rosemann Suppressed crop prices and a supply glut have negatively impacted the financial performance of crop nutrient companies around the world and have helped spur a string of attempted mergers in the agriculture space. Seed giant Bayer’s (BAYRY) pursuit of rival Monsanto (MON) and ChemChina’s purchase of Syngenta (SYT) for $43 billion are two recent examples of consolidation attempts among major agricultural firms, the latter of which is expected to create the world’s largest supplier of pesticides and agrochemicals. Canadian firms Potash Corp (POT) and Agrium (AGU) had previously announced they were in preliminary merger talks and have now announced an agreement to combine forces in a merger of equals that will create a … Read more

Still More Ag Deals Being Cultivated?

Image Source: Aqua Mechanical After Monsanto (MON) COO Brett Begemann called any takeover talks “wild speculation” just a week ago, German health care and agricultural product firm Bayer (BAYRY) on May 23 officially confirmed that it has offered to acquire US seeds company Monsanto for $62 billion in cash, or $122 per share. Monsanto’s shares continue to trade at a discount to the disclosed price in light of the uncertain path to deal completion. The proposed offer represents a substantial premium to Monsanto’s May 9 closing price of ~$89 and our standalone fair value estimate in the low $90s. At a deal multiple of nearly 16 times Monsanto’s trailing EBITDA and one far above our fair value estimate, Monsanto shareholders … Read more

Our Thoughts on Big Pharma’s Calendar Fourth Quarter Earnings Reports

Image Source: Merck & Company Inc – Fourth Quarter of 2021 IR Earnings Presentation By Callum Turcan In Alphabetical Order by Ticker: ABBV, GILD, LLY, MRK We include the Health Care Select Sector SPDR Fund ETF (XLV) in the Best Ideas Newsletter and Dividend Growth Newsletter portfolios to gain broad exposure to the health care sector. Instead of betting on one entity’s pipeline (which could be hit or miss), we like the exposure to lots and lots of “shots on goal” when it comes to the vast collective pipeline in the XLV ETF. We wrote up the calendar fourth-quarter results of the top two weightings in the XLV ETF, United Health (UNH) and Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) here and here, … Read more

Dividend Increases/Decreases for the Week of April 26

Below we provide a list of firms that raised their dividends during the week ending April 26. The dividend reports of covered firms on this list will be updated shortly with the new information. To access our dividend reports use the ‘Symbol’ search box in our website header. Firms Raising Their Dividends This Week                          ABN AMRO Bank N.V. (AAVMY): now $0.7645 per share semi-annual dividend, was $0.5310. ACNB (ACNB): now $0.32 per share quarterly dividend, was $0.30. Akzo Nobel N.V. (AKZOY): now $0.4497 per share semi-annual dividend, was $0.1125. Alfa Laval Corporate AB (ALFVY): now $0.7097 per share semi-annual dividend, was $0.5735. Alphabet (GOOG): now $0.20 per share quarterly dividend. Amalgamated Bank (AMAL): now $0.15 per share quarterly … Read more