Novartis Gets Approval At Ciba And Sandoz AGMs

Shareholders at both Sandoz and Ciba-Geigy approved the merger of the two firms to form Novartis at their annual general meetings. At Sandoz, the decision was taken by 20.7 million votes to 91,203 votes while at Ciba, the proposal to merge was accepted by 18.2 million votes for and 155,084 share votes against. There were 302,732 abstentions.

Alex Krauer, chairman and chief executive of Ciba, who will be chairman of the new merged company, was confident at the AGM that: "the decision of Sandoz and Ciba to merge as equal partners is in the interests of all concerned parties. This also applies to the decision to demerge our specialty chemicals businesses to form an independent organization."

Marc Moret, chairman of Sandoz, commented that the merger is in the interests of everyone - staff, shareholders, the Basel region, and Switzerland.