Personally I’ve found this thread to be extremely useful as it meandered away from the initial subject of third-generation, irreversible epidermal growth factor receptor tyrosine kinase inhibitors.
The golden nugget for me in the ensuing posts was a quote Monabri posted (thanks Monabri)...
"The British drugmaker is getting its ducks in a row for an £8 billion ($10.3 billion) offer for its partner’s 36.5% share, top shareholders told The Sunday Times. Industry watchers say Novartis could use the extra dough to help fund a megatakeover—and word is, the potential target is AstraZeneca."
Am I going to do anything as a result of the above? No, it’s total speculation at the moment and might well never happen but I was completely unaware of any such rumours until today. Such major takeovers, depending on how they are structured, have the potential to be awkward for me since the majority of my HYP is not tax sheltered (not by design, it is too big to all fit in my ISA and SIPP accounts) and any capital gains or other tax liability that might arise from a corporate action that returns some capital for one of my big holdings has the potential to erode the returned capital to be redeployed into other income generating shares. As I say, there is nothing I can or will do about this now even on a what-if planning basis because it might never happen and we have no idea how such a deal might be structured but I for one am grateful that, were it to happen at some point in the near to medium term future, Monabri has placed that little marker in my brain today such that it wouldn’t be a total bolt out of the blue at the point when rumours and corporate clues might become sufficiently credible to make it look like a very high probability event.
Thanks also Ian for starting the thread. If people don’t find the news interesting or relevant they can always ignore it and how discussions in these sort of threads can evolve and grow and uncover other interesting things I find valuable & it was Ian who planted the seed in this case
- Julian