On Thursday, Royalty Pharma received a setback in its battle to takeover Elan, an Irish drug firm. This was after a ruling was attached to the US company's hostile bid endangered to end said deal.
Last month, Royalty raised its cash bid to EUR$6.4 billion for Elan. The US based company also set conditional terms for the shareholders of the Dublin based firm in a resolution at a meeting on June 17. This was to stop Elan from pushing through defensive transaction series.
Royalty sought a ruling from the Irish Takeover Panel to confirm that it will not be obliged to drop the deal if all of the four votes were carried out. Elan cited that only two of the four resolutions are to be discussed in the meeting concerning the agreement.
On Thursday, the panel decided that Royalty could not revise the terms in its proposed deal. That means that the bid will no longer pursue once shareholders from Elan back either of the two argumentative resolutions. The two contentious terms mentioned include a drug spin-off aiming towards decreasing operating costs and a share buyback.
The takeover panel said that the moment Elan shareholders vote in favor of any of the transactions, Royalty will be obliged to dismiss its revised deal.
Elan stated that the said ruling would let its shareholders properly assess each of the resolutions. Spokesman for Royalty Pharma declined to comment regarding said report.
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