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 Pfizer Inc. - PFE
Pfizer Inc. (NYSE:PFE; 18.94)
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Re: Pfizer Inc. - PFE
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Re: Pfizer Inc. - PFE
Pfizer 3Q profit triples due to charge a year ago
Tuesday October 21, 7:37 am ET
Drugmaker Pfizer posts big jump in 3Q profit due to charge a year ago, sales are flat
NEW YORK (AP) -- Pfizer Inc. says its third-quarter profit tripled, mainly because a huge charge depressed last year's results.
The world's biggest drugmaker said Tuesday it earned $2.3 billion, or 34 cents per share, the the latest quarter. That's up from $761 million, or 11 cents per share, a year ago.
Its adjusted earnings amounts to 62 cents a share. That is 2 cents a share more than analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters expected.
It says its revenues slipped to $11.97 billion from $11.99 billion a year ago. Analysts had been expecting revenues of $12.01 billion.
The maker of impotence treatment Viagra says it saw a big drop in U.S. sales of cholesterol fighter Lipitor and some drugs with generic competition, but that other medicines sold well.
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Re: Pfizer Inc. - PFE
Pfizer to buy Wyeth for $68 billion, cut jobs
Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer strikes $68 billion deal to buy Wyeth, plans to cut 10 pct of jobs
* Linda A. Johnson and Damian J. Troise, AP Business Writers
* Monday January 26, 2009, 9:24 am EST
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* Amgen Inc.
* , Pfizer Inc.
* , Wyeth
NEW YORK (AP) -- Pfizer Inc. is buying rival drugmaker Wyeth in a $68 billion deal that will increase its revenue by 50 percent, solidfy its No. 1 rank in the troubled industry and transform it from a pure pharmaceutical company into a diversified health care giant.
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At the same time, Pfizer announced cost cuts that include slashing more than 8,000 jobs as it prepares for an expected revenue crash when its cholesterol drug Lipitor -- the world's top-selling medicine and source of one-quarter of Pfizer's revenue -- loses patent protection in November 2011.
The cash-and-stock deal, expected to close at the end of the third quarter or in the fourth quarter, comes as Pfizer's profit takes a brutal hit from a $2.3 billion legal settlement over allegations it marketed certain products for indications that have not been approved. The New York-based company is also cutting 10 percent of its work force of 81,900, slashing its dividend, and reducing the number of manufacturing sites from 46 to 41. Those closures, and reducing its facilities square footage by about 15 percent, will cost about $6 billion before taxes, of which $1.5 billion has been incurred, Pfizer said.
The company did not specify which plants it would close.
Job cuts at Pfizer will begin in the first quarter and are to be complete by 2011, according to company spokesman Ray Kerins. Cuts will include most departments, from administration in sales to manufacturing and research.
"It will be done in a methodical way," Kerins said. "We will continue to look at the staffing needs of the company and make decisions based on those needs."
Pfizer said it anticipates the new cost-cutting program will reduce spending by about $3 billion, $1 billion of which will be reinvested in the business. That's on top of an existing cost-cutting program that has produced about $2.8 billion in annual savings, compared with 2006 levels.
Like Pfizer, Wyeth -- the maker of blockbuster antidepressant Effexor and children's vaccine Prevnar -- has its own cost-cutting program in place, dubbed Project Impact.
"No specific decisions have yet been made about job reductions (at Wyeth) in connection with the transaction," said company spokesman Doug Petkus.
Early Monday, Pfizer, the maker of Lipitor and impotence pill Viagra, said it will pay $50.19 per share under for Wyeth, valuing Madison, N.J.-based Wyeth at a 14.7 percent premium to the company's closing price of $43.74 Friday.
Both companies' boards of directors approved the deal but Wyeth shareholders must do so, antitrust regulators must review the deal and a consortium of banks lending the companies $22.5 billion must complete the financing.
The deal is being financed by five banks, according to Kerins. They are Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Barclays, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs and J.P. Morgan Chase.
Pfizer has been under pressure from Wall Street to make a bold move as it faces what is referred to as a patent cliff in the coming years. As key drugs lose patent protection they will face generic competition and declining sales. Lipitor is expected to face generic competition starting in November 2011. It brings in nearly $13 billion per year for the company.
Acquiring Wyeth helps Pfizer diversify and become less-dependent on individual drugs -- Lipitor now provides about one-fourth of all Pfizer revenue -- while adding strength in biotech drugs, vaccines and consumer products. Wyeth makes the world's top-selling vaccines, Prevnar for meningitis and pneumococcal disease, and co-markets with Amgen Inc. the world's No. 1 biotech drug, Enbrel for rheumatoid arthritis.
"The combination of Pfizer and Wyeth provides a powerful opportunity to transform our industry," Pfizer Chairman and Chief Executive Jeffery B. Kindler said in a statement. "It will produce the world's premier biopharmaceutical company whose distinct blend of diversification, flexibility, and scale positions it for success in a dynamic global health care environment."
Together, and the two companies will have 17 different products with annual sales of $1 billion or more, including top antidepressant Effexor, Lyrica for fibromyalgia and nerve pain, Detrol for overactive bladder and blood pressure drug Norvasc.
Shortly after announcing the Wyeth deal, Pfizer said fourth-quarter profit plunged on a charge to settle investigations into off-label marketing practices. The company earned $268 million, or 4 cents per share, compared with profit of $2.72 billion, or 40 cents per share, a year prior. Revenue fell 4 percent to $12.35 billion from $12.87 billion.
Excluding about $2.3 billion in legal charges, the company says profit rose to 65 cents per share.
Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected profit of 59 cents per share on revenue of $12.54 billion.
Looking ahead, New York-based Pfizer expects earnings per share between $1.85 and $1.95 in 2009, below forecasts for $2.49.
Wyeth said its fourth-quarter profit declined 5.6 percent, to $960.4 million, or 71 cents per share, down from $1.02 billion, or 75 cents per share, in the 2007 quarter.
Excluding productivity-initiative charges, the company earned 78 cents per share in the latest quarter. Worldwide revenue fell 7 percent to $5.35 billion, dragged down partly by unfavorable currency exchange rates.
Analysts on average expected Wyeth to earn 79 cents per share on revenue of $5.79 billion.
Wyeth said it isn't giving financial guidance for 2009.
Johnson contributed to this story from Trenton, N.J.
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Pfizer deal gives Wyeth say on board, breakup fee
Thursday January 29, 7:56 pm ET
By Linda A. Johnson, AP Business Writer
Pfizer acquisition agreement would give Wyeth seats on Pfizer board, $4.5 billion breakup fee
TRENTON, N.J. (AP) -- Drug giant Pfizer Inc.'s agreement to acquire rival Wyeth would give Wyeth directors a voice on Pfizer's board and includes hefty penalties aimed at preventing the deal from collapsing, according to a regulatory filing made Thursday.
The 86-page agreement states that Pfizer will add two current directors on Wyeth's board to its own board.
And it spells out what happens if either side tries to back out of what would be Pfizer's third large acquisition since 2000.
Pfizer would be on the hook for $4.5 billion, while Wyeth would have to pay a breakup fee of $1.5 billion to $2 billion, depending on the timing and circumstances under which its terminates the deal. The higher fee for Wyeth would apply after 30 days from when the agreement was reached on Jan. 25, or Feb. 24.
New York-based Pfizer announced Monday that it had an agreement to acquire Wyeth, of Madison, N.J. for just under $68 billion, although the value of the deal has since declined with Pfizer's share price, to about $64.8 billion.
The regulatory filing by Pfizer, called a Current Report, was submitted to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission late Thursday.
Among other things, it states that Wyeth cannot actively solicit a competing proposal from another potential acquirer.
Approval of Wyeth's shareholders is one of several conditions for the merger to be consummated, along with approval of federal regulators and Pfizer securing its planned financing of the deal.
The acquisition is fueled by Pfizer's need to address an expected revenue crash in 2011 when the world's top-selling drug, its cholesterol fighter Lipitor, loses patent protection. By buying Wyeth, Pfizer expects to mutate from a maker of blockbuster pills, including Lipitor, impotence pill Viagra and antidepressant Zoloft, to a one-stop shop for vaccines, biotech drugs, traditional pills, nonprescription products and veterinary medicines.
Besides that diversification, the deal offers Pfizer the chance to immediately boost revenue by about 50 percent, to about $71 billion a year, and at the same time slash costs furiously to improve its bottom line.
Pfizer is beginning to lay off roughly 8,200 of its employees and said that ultimately 15 percent of the combined companies's workforce of 129,500 people -- nearly 20,000 workers -- will lose their jobs.
Under the agreement, Pfizer would fund the purchase with about one-third each worth of its own cash, stock and newly issued debt. Wyeth shareholders would receive a combination of $33 in cash for each of their shares, plus 0.985 of a share of Pfizer stock. Given that the value of Pfizer stock has fallen from its close at $17.45 a share last Friday, to $15.12 Thursday, the total value of the deal is now down to about $64.8 billion.
In order to fund the $22.5 billion cash portion of the purchase, Pfizer had to slash its dividend from 32 cents to 16 cents, a move analysts say was a major reason investors sold off furiously Monday, driving the share price down from $17.45 to $15.65. The dividend had been a prime reason for hanging onto Pfizer's languishing stock, now worth about one-third of its $48 peak in 2000.
Pfizer will significantly increase its debt with the deal, borrowing a total of $22.5 billion from five investment banks that are then syndicating, or parceling out, parts of that debt to other banks, lenders and investors.
"When we close the transaction, we'll have about $50 billion of debt," including existing Pfizer and Wyeth debt, Chief Financial Officer Frank D'Amelio told institutional investors at a luncheon Tuesday were Pfizer executives talked up the deal.
To prevent the need to borrow even more, D'Amelio told the investors, Pfizer will be repatriating a large, but unspecified amount of its cash held overseas. That comes at the price of much higher tax rates, high enough that Pfizer estimates its 2009 tax rate will be 30 percent, up from 22 percent in 2008.
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Pfizer, Wyeth Deal Falls $3.8 Billion as Shares Dive
By Shannon Pettypiece
Jan. 30 (Bloomberg) -- Pfizer Inc. shares have fallen 16 percent in the week since the company announced it would buy Wyeth, cutting the value of the cash and stock transaction by about $3.8 billion, or 5.6 percent, to $64.2 billion.
Pfizer said Jan. 26 that it would pay $33 plus 0.985 of a Pfizer share for each share of Wyeth. With Pfizer closing at $17.45 a share on the last day of trading before the deal was announced, the transaction was valued at about $68 billion. Today, shares of New York-based Pfizer closed at $14.58 in New York Stock Exchange composite trading.
Pfizer spokeswoman Joan Campion said there’s no limit how high or low Pfizer’s share price can go in the agreement. A Wyeth shareholder asked a federal judge to block the drugmaker’s sale, saying that it’s “unlawful and unenforceable” and that Wyeth directors failed to get the best price, breaching their fiduciary duty. The plaintiff, Sheldon Drogin, made the allegations in a lawsuit filed Jan. 27 in Newark, New Jersey.
The offer is “unfair and grossly inadequate because, among other things, the intrinsic value of Wyeth’s common stock is materially in excess of the amount offered,” Drogin, who lives in Seattle, said in the complaint.
“This is a common occurrence in this situation and the bottom line is that the merger agreement is in the best interest of Wyeth shareholders and a very compelling transaction for Wyeth shareholders,” said Doug Petkus, a Wyeth spokesman, in a telephone interview. “We do believe these lawsuits are without merit.”
Wyeth Meeting
Wyeth shareholders may vote whether to approve the deal at the company’s annual meeting on April 23. If Wyeth, of Madison, New Jersey, doesn’t complete the transaction because it received a competing bid, it will have to pay Pfizer $2 billion after 30 days, the company said in a regulatory filing Jan. 29.
The acquisition would give Pfizer the depression pill Effexor and pneumonia vaccine Prevnar. That would offset some of the $12 billion in annual sales it expects to begin losing in 2011 when the cholesterol pill Lipitor, which generates a quarter of the company’s revenue, faces generic competition.
Pfizer fell 54 cents, or 3.6 percent, to $14.58 at 4 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. Wyeth fell 65 cents, or 1.5 percent, to $42.97.
Pfizer agreed to pay a $4.5 billion breakup fee if banks decide against lending the drugmaker enough to complete the acquisition. JPMorgan Chase & Co., Bank of America Corp., Barclays Plc, Citigroup Inc. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. put together the loan package. The banks can pull out of the deal if Pfizer’s operations decline or the company’s credit rating falls below A2, by Moody’s Investors Services. The rating now is Aa1.
To contact the reporter on this story: Shannon Pettypiece in New York at spettypiece@bloomberg.net
Last Updated: January 30, 2009 16:29 EST
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 Pfizer’s Wyeth Deal Perverts U.S. Bailout, Group Says
By Alex Nussbaum
Feb. 2 (Bloomberg) -- Pfizer Inc.’s Wyeth acquisition perverts the U.S. government’s Troubled Asset Relief Program, relying on loans from five banks aided by the bailout for a deal that will cut 19,500 jobs, a California advocacy group said.
The Greenlining Institute asked the Justice Department and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner to block the $64.6 billion transaction unless the companies lower consumer drug prices, said Bob Gnaizda, an attorney for the public policy group, in a telephone interview today. The letters, sent Jan. 29 by the Berkeley, California, group, ask whether the deal abuses taxpayer funds.
TARP funds were meant to bolster the economy by promoting lending, not finance job cuts, Gnaizda said. Pfizer, based in New York, said 19,500 jobs will be eliminated from the combined companies. The deal is financed by $22.5 billion in loans from banks that received at least $75 billion from the Treasury Department’s rescue plan, the drugmaker said on Jan. 26.
Backing the acquisition with bailout money is “a kind of perversity,” Gnaizda said. “There’s no way this deal could occur without the use of TARP money.”
Pfizer climbed 31 cents, or 2.1 percent, to $14.89 in New York Stock Exchange composite trading at 4:15 p.m. The world’s largest drugmaker fell 16 percent last week after the deal was announced and lost 37 percent in the past 12 months. Wyeth, based in Madison, New Jersey, rose 23 cents, or less than 1 percent, to $43.20.
Drop ‘Not Unusual’
Pfizer’s drop last week, which reduced the value of the deal from its initial $68 billion, is “not unusual” for acquisitions, Chief Executive Officer Jeffrey Kindler said in an interview on CNBC television today. The company’s decision to halve its quarterly dividend also had an impact on shares, Kindler said.
The Justice and Treasury departments haven’t responded to the letters, Gnaizda said. Spokesmen for the departments didn’t immediately return calls seeking comment. Ray Kerins, a Pfizer spokesman, said he couldn’t respond to the complaint because he hadn’t seen it.
JPMorgan Chase & Co., Bank of America Corp., Barclays Plc, Citigroup Inc. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. assembled the loan package for Pfizer. All but Barclays have tapped TARP, according to data gathered by Bloomberg.
The deal amounts to “a bailout of two of America’s largest big pharma companies and sets a precedent for similar misuses of TARP funds,” Greenlining’s letter to Geithner says.
Drug Prices
The letter to Attorney General Eric Holder and the Justice Department’s antitrust division asks the government to block the deal unless Pfizer and Wyeth agree to sell medicines in the U.S. at no more than the lowest price they charge in Europe, Canada and other developed countries, Gnaizda said.
“You have the use of this money to promote something that’s anticompetitive and against the public interest and is also taking scarce funds away from what otherwise would be lending to small businesses,” Gnaizda said in the interview.
The complaints are unlikely to delay the deal, though they will create “perception problems” for Pfizer in the future, said Les Funtleyder, a Miller Tabak & Co. analyst in New York, in a telephone interview.
Pfizer shares rose today on Kindler’s public comments and a broader rise in financial markets, Funtleyder said. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Pharmaceutical Index, including Pfizer and 12 other companies, rose 0.7 percent today.
“The stock couldn’t keep going down forever,” Funtleyder said.
Two Lawsuits
The acquisition prompted two lawsuits from Wyeth shareholders who said their board should have held out for a better price.
The deal deprives investors of “the full benefit of the company’s stronger patent portfolio,” shareholder Anna Meisher said in a complaint filed Jan. 30 in Delaware Chancery Court. Meisher asked a judge to declare the deal “unlawful and unenforceable,” and rescind any merger agreement.
Pfizer said Jan. 26 it would pay $33 plus 0.985 of a Pfizer share for each share of Wyeth, valuing shares of Wyeth at $50.19. The value has fallen as Pfizer shares declined.
The case is Anna Meisher v. Bernard Poussot, CA4329, Delaware Chancery Court (Wilmington). The second complaint, filed Jan. 27, is Sheldon Drogin v. Wyeth, 09-cv-383, U.S. District Court, District of New Jersey (Newark).
To contact the reporter on this story: Alex Nussbaum in New York anussbaum1@bloomberg.net.
Last Updated: February 2, 2009 17:15 EST
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Re: Pfizer Inc. - PFE
See if we can continue a move Monday - Tuesday on Prizer Inc. PFE to 15.00 - 15.50 ranges.
 Originally Posted by Stock_Analyzer
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Pfizer profit jumps 26 percent on cost cutting
Pfizer profit jumps 26 percent on cost cutting
Drugmaker Pfizer's 3Q profit jumps 26 percent on cost cuts; more expected with Wyeth deal done
On 7:57 am EDT, Tuesday October 20, 2009
Companies: Pfizer Inc.
NEW YORK (AP) -- Pfizer Inc. on Tuesday posted a higher third-quarter profit despite the recession, as sharp cost cuts made up for slightly lower sales.
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Symbol Price Change
PFE 17.98 0.00
The maker of cholesterol fighter Lipitor, impotence treatment Viagra and smoking cessation drug Chantix slashed costs on everything from manufacturing and marketing to research and development to produce a profit of $2.88 billion. That was up 26 percent from $2.28 billion a year earlier, when the company had a huge legal charge over promotion of its painkillers.
Pfizer will keep cutting costs, now that it has completed the biggest drug industry deal of the year. The $68 billion acquisition of Wyeth last Thursday cements Pfizer's position atop the industry, and the combined company is expected to eliminate nearly 20,000 jobs by the time integration is complete.
Pfizer had sales of $11.62 billion in the quarter, down 3 percent from $11.97 billion a year ago.
The company said revenue was pulled down about 5 percent due to unfavorable foreign exchange rates.
Sales were down across all five of Pfizer's business divisions, with the worst decline being a 12 percent drop in the established products business, which sells prescription drugs that have lost patent protection. Sales declined between 3 percent and 5 percent in businesses selling primary care, specialty care and cancer drugs, as well as the division selling to emerging markets such as China and India.
Pfizer said that excluding one-time charges, earnings per share would have been 51 cents.
Analysts were expecting earnings per share of 48 cents and revenue of $11.41 billion, both slightly lower than Pfizer's results.
With the Wyeth acquisition, Pfizer will have about $57 billion a year in revenue, with lucrative products in everything from traditional pills and animal and consumer health products to biotech drugs and vaccines. Those include Pfizer's pain treatment Celebrex and Lyrica, blood pressure treatment Norvasc and ophthalmology drug Xalatan, plus Wyeth blockbusters including antidepressant Effexor, children's pneumococcal vaccine Prevnar and Enbrel, a biotech drug for rheumatoid arthritis.
However, revenue and costs from Wyeth were not included in Tuesday's earnings report.
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