Battle for Pliva escalates, with higher bids from Actavis and Barr

The bidding war for Croatian generic drugs group Pliva has gone into overdrive, since the firm accepted a $2.2 billion offer from US firm Barr Pharmaceuticals on June 27 (Marketletter July 3).

First, Iceland's Actavis, which made a hostile - and subsequently rejected - offer for Pliva in March, submitted an improved proposal late on June 29, valued at around $2.3 billion in total.

Along with this, Actavis said it would retain the Pliva name in Croatia and transfer production to that country from existing sites elsewhere. It also claimed that, unlike the current proposal from Barr, Actavis' offer is not conditional on prior completion of regulatory reviews in the USA, Germany or other jurisdictions. Moreover, the Icelandic group said it had acquired shares in Pliva on the open market bringing its total stake to 9.7% and had entered into call option agreements for a further 10.7%, thus securing direct and indirect ownership of the Croatian group of 20.4%.