Hunziker countered with a Roche study that take-privates on average
require 12 months to complete. Plenty of time.
And what about those
reports from the
Financial Times this weekend that Roche was gearing up for a second offer at $95 a share?
He
repeated the company line that the first offer was "extremely fair," and Hunziker denied a key element of the FT report, that it would suspend its
shareholder dividend to help pay for a sweetened Genentech offer. The FT had reported that the conference host, J.P. Morgan, was part of a
10-bank syndicate ready to lend $25 billion long-term to the new offer
on top of a revolving $10 billion facility.
Hunziker also repeated some
previous reassurances, namely that Roche won't mess with Genentech's
research, early-development and sales teams. The South San Francisco,
Calif.-based biotech, which counts about 10,000 employees, will remain
"an innovation center with a high degree of autonomy." In fact, he said
cuts at Roche will be "much tougher" than on the Genentech side as the
firm looks to pare staff. (Some of this has already come true: Roche
has said it will shut down its 1,000-person Palo Alto, Calif., research
campus, a half hour down the road from Genentech.) -
Alex Lash
Roche Holding AG's CFO Erich Hunziker said at the J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. conference that everything is right on track with the Genentech Inc. acquisition. And what about the delay of six months? 
