What’s a Better Address – New York City or London?
The elephants started to dance this week as Pfizer, the global pharmaceutical company, made an unsolicited bid to buy another global pharmaceutical company, AstraZeneca. Speculation swirled in the market that Pfizer’s initial offer, which was 30% higher than the previous day’s closing price, was too low. Such are the battles that occur during the pursuit of companies – an eager buyer and unwilling seller. Time will tell if this deal occurs or not.
I find the backstory around this deal very interesting. To start that discussion we first need to look at the addresses of these two giants. Pfizer’s home headquarters is 235 E. 42nd Street, New York, and AstraZeneca’s is 2 Kingdom Street, London. So what’s the big deal? Isn’t this merger just another example of a U.S. company wanting to buy a U.K. company? Not completely as an interesting part of the story rests in significant tax savings.