McKesson unsuccessful in bid for Celesio

SAN FRANCISCO — McKesson on Monday announced that it was unsuccessful in reaching the 75% completion condition in its offer for the outstanding shares and convertible bonds of Celesio.

“While we are disappointed that we were not successful in completing our offers for Celesio, we have a track record of great performance, a strong balance sheet and demonstrated leadership and scale across our markets,” said John Hammergren, chairman and CEO, McKesson. “We are well positioned and will continue to explore and evaluate opportunities to further strengthen our businesses through our disciplined approach to capital allocation.”

In an effort to help close the deal last week, McKesson reached an agreement with Franz Haniel & Cie. GmbH, currently representing a 50.01% stake in Celesio, to sweeten the purchase price for its shareholding in Celesio to EUR 23.50 per share (US$32.07 per share).

Accordingly, the price McKesson was offering to all shareholders of Celesio by way of a voluntary public takeover offer increased to EUR 23.50 per share.

The operations of Celesio was to have been part of McKesson's Distribution Solutions segment. The combined group was expected to have annual revenues in excess of $150 billion, approximately 81,500 employees worldwide and operations in more than 20 countries. McKesson and Celesio combined deliver to approximately 120,000 pharmacy and hospital locations on a daily basis in the United States, Canada, Europe and Brazil, including more than 11,000 pharmacies that are either owned or are part of a strategic banner or franchise network of community pharmacies.