Drug-maker Sun Pharma has terminated a revised offer it had made to Taro shareholders to eventually merge the company with itself.
Sun Pharma holds 66 per cent equity in Taro and mid last year, it had sweetened its proposal to shareholders to mop up the remaining shares in Taro.
The two companies have mutually agreed to terminate the merger agreement where Taro shareholders would have received a cash payment of $39.50 a share on the close of the merger, Sun said on Friday. It was in the “best interest of the respective companies and shareholders”, it added.
The revised $39.50-deal, in fact, had the approval of the Taro board, unlike Sun’s earlier proposal of $24.50 a share.
Despite this, a section of the minority shareholders had serious reservations on the offer price, as Taro’s performance had since improved and so had its stock price. Minority shareholder Grand Slam Capital Master Fund had gone to court in the US against Taro board and directors, for what it called an unfair deal.
Sun’s $454-million acquisition of Israeli generic-drugs maker Taro has been a rocky process, with cross-country litigation fought over three years. And if the revised deal had gone through, Sun had plans to de-list Taro from the New York Stock Exchange.