Shares of Conceptus Inc. (NASDAQ: CPTS) rallied about 19.40% by afternoon trade after Bayer AG said that it has agreed to acquire Conceptus in deal estimated at euro 852 million ( $1.1 billion ) as the health-care company looks to gain traction in women contraceptive market. Bayer said that in next 10 days period, it will issue a tender with a proposal to buy all of Conceptus’s stock, valuing each share at $31 in cash, which represents a 20% premium over Friday’s closing stock price. The deal is likely to close by the second quarter of this year.
Shares of NII Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ: NIHD) climbed about 9% by afternoon trade after analysts at Wells Fargo boosted their rating on embattled wireless services provider to “outperform” and lifted the price target to $13-$15 a share from $5-$5.50 a share. In a note to clients, Wells Fargo said that more divestures and “continued turnaround in Mexico and Brazil through pushout of 3G services” could drive up the stock even higher.
Shares of both Valeant Pharmaceuticals Intl Inc. (NYSE:VRX) and Actavis Inc. (NYSE: ACT) climbed about 5% by afternoon trade. According to Reuters, both companies gave decided to put their merger decision on hold. According to market grapevine, Valeant was trying to acquire Actavis for more than $13 billion; however, the talks have now stalled, apparently over the proposed terms of the deal.
Shares of Chinese social networking giant, Sina Corp. (NASDAQ: SINA) catapulted about 11% by afternoon trade after Chinese e-commerce giant, Alibaba agreed to acquire 18% stake in Sina Corp’s microblogging services, Weibo in a deal valued at $356 million. The deal aims at marrying Weibo’s microblogging platform and Alibaba’s e-commerce platform so that users can get better experience. The strategic alliance is estimated to generate about $380 million in revenue through advertising and social commerce services for Weibo services, in next three years, said Alibaba. According to the terms of the deal, Alibaba will be allowed to raise its stake to 30% in the future.
Shares of Medidata Solutions Inc. (NASDAQ: MDSO) skyrocketed 20.75% by afternoon trade after the company announced better-than-expected fiscal first quarter results on Monday. For the quarter, the Company posted earnings of 35 cents a share, comfortably beating analysts’ consensus estimate of 23 cents a share, according to a data compiled by Thomson Reuters. Revenue during the period climbed 25.55% to $63.30 million, edging past the Street’s consensus estimate of $61.32 million. In the same quarter of last year, the Company reported earnings of 22 cents a share.
Shares of Galectin Therapeutics (NASDAQ: GALT), leaped about 20% by afternoon trade. Galectin, which is the foremost developer of therapeutics that target galectin to cure fibrosis and cancer, made its data public, which was first revealed on April 27 2013 at the International Liver Congress in Amsterdam. Two drugs dubbed as GR-MD-02 and GM-CT-01, which reduced galectin protein, showed that it reversed the most complex stage of liver fibrosis, known as cirrhosis. The experiment was carried on animals given toxin induced cirrhosis.
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