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Headnote:
Bergen Brunswig, Stymied in Cardinal Deal, Adjusts Acquisition Strategy
If at first you don't suceed ... well, you know how it goes. And acquisitive Orange-based Bergen Brunswig Corp. is living up to the adage.
The company's stock stumbled after the late1996 collapse of a merger with Miami-based Ivax Corp.
But the company got back in the ring, and negotiated another merger - with Dublin, Ohio-based Cardinal Health Inc., the secondlargest drug wholesaler in the country. The FTC struck down that $2.5 billion deal on antitrust grounds in August, and Bergen's stock dipped again.
But Bergen didn't miss a beat, making several acquisitions in the ensuing months, including the not-yet-final acquisition of Tampabased PharMerica Inc., which with a value of $1.26 billion was the single largest deal involving an OC firm in the past 12 months, (see chart on page 60).
Bergen's January acquisition of Torontobased Stadtlander Drug Co., with a $428 million valuation, was the third-largest buy by an OC firm announced in the past 12 months, and the largest to have closed.
The acquisitions have boosted Bergen to the No. 2 position on the Business Journal's list of public companies in Orange County (see last week's edition) with more than $18 billion in annual revenue and more than 6,000 employees.
But grow as it might, Bergen is being matched, and then some, by Cardinal. Cardinal responded to the ETC rejection by doing a different blockbuster deal - the $5.4 billion acquisition of Allegiance Corp., a medical product (as opposed...