More Videos
SPECIAL REPORT
MOST SHARED
- The 'Real' Jobless Rate: 17.5% Of Workers Are Unemployed
- US Home Prices Up 5th Month, 2nd Straight Quarter
- China Eastern to Complete Shanghai Air Buy by End '09
- Gold Will Collapse Like Oil Did in 2008: Charts
- Weak Dollar Is Golden for Mining Companies
- Revised GDP Reading Puts Growth at 2.8%; Inflation Tame
- Wave of Debt Payments Facing US Government
- CA "More Profitable" After Saving Energy: CEO
- How Many US Consumers Will Shop this Weekend?
- Buy These 'Competitively Positioned' Stocks: Portfolio Manager
- Behind The Scenes With Warren Buffett
- 'Why the American Consumer Will Keep on Buying No Matter What'
- On Assignment: Europe & Asia
- The L.A. Extravaganza: A Test for Auto Shows
- 8 Stocks That Could Gain With Rising GDP
- 5 Stocks That Benefit from Health Care Legislation: Analysts
- Can Murdoch Help Bing Challenge Google and Shift the Content Equation?
- HP's Mark Hurd
- US Home Prices Up 5th Month, 2nd Straight Quarter
- Revised GDP Reading Puts Growth at 2.8%; Inflation Tame
- FDIC Insurance Fund Falls to Negative $8.2 Billion
- Ron Paul's Plan to Audit Fed a 'Serious Attack': Mishkin
- US Economy Mired in 'Form of Depression': Rosenberg
- Strong Banks, Weak Credit: Treasury Rethinks TARP
- Fairfax Lawsuit Keeps Heat on Chanos, SAC's Cohen
- Blog: Behind The Scenes With Warren Buffett
- Buyers Look For Bargains At Luxury Condo Auction
PHARMA'S MARKET VIDEO
Novartis Opens 1st US Plant for Flu Vaccine 
4 hrs agoCholesterol Drug Battle: Niaspan vs. Zetia 16 Nov 2009
Cardiologist Grades Cholesterol Drug Study 16 Nov 2009
Merck's Cholesterol Drugs Under Pressure 16 Nov 2009
Cholesterol Drug Battle: Merck vs. Abbott Labs 16 Nov 2009
Cholesterol Drug Battle 16 Nov 2009
RSS FEED
Pharma's Market
Text Size 
 |
That's the question I'm asking after Novartis announced that it's tapped a managing director of investment banking at Goldman Sachs, Jonathan Symonds, as its CFO apprentice.
Okay, that's what I'm calling him. Novartis refers to the 50-year-old Symonds as "deputy CFO and as CFO designate." So, starting September 1st Symonds is going to shadow the current CFO Raymond Breu until he retires on March 31st next year. Breu, who is turning 65, has been with NVS for 35 years. That kind of longevity at a single company is almost unheard of these days.
Before working at Goldman, Symonds was CFO at AstraZeneca for eight years where, according to Novartis' press release, his duties included strategy and mergers and acquisitions. Of course, M&A is the name of the game in big pharma right now. So far this year, Pfizer's buying Wyeth, Merck's buying Schering-Plough and Roche bought Genentech. So, who's next?
In an exclusive interview with NVS Chairman and CEO Dr. Daniel Vasella last week I asked him about the current consolidation wave and whether he'd get caught up in it. Beyond the Nestle/Alcon deal, Dr. Vasella would only say, "The future will tell." Well, one week into the future, he's gone out and hired an investment banker as his CFO.
Coincidentally, JPMorgan pharma analyst Chris Schott is out with a research note for clients today titled, "Perspective On The Next Pharma Deal." He thinks the two major American drug companies that haven't done a mega deal (yet), Bristol-Myers Squibb and Eli Lilly, will probably do "small/mid-sized transactions." Some analysts and investors have speculated the two might hook up, but it's just rumor and speculation at this point. Schott points out that BMY has around $9 billion in "gross cash" and LLY has nearly $5 billion.
They're not the only ones sitting on a bunch of cash. Pretty much all of the big pharmas have a significant amount of spending money. And soon NVS will have an investment banker at the helm, with a pharma background to boot, to help the company figure out where to put its capital to work.
Questions? Comments? and follow me on Twitter at mhuckman
Data is a real-time snapshot *Data is delayed at least 15 minutes