It was announced Thursday that IMS Health was to be stolen from its shareholders for $4 billion or about $22 share; a private equity firm will buy them out. IMS Health should have free cash flows this year over $340 million (the actual number should be higher than $400 million, but is benefited by a [...]
IMS Health (RX) did not have a spectacular quarter to put it mildly. Revenue decline (on constant currency basis) accelerated to 4% from a 2% decline last quarter. Pharmaceutical companies are becoming more stingy and thus RX’s business got pinched. However, most of the revenue damage is taking place on the consulting side of the [...]
The word contrarian is often overused in investing, I have yet to meet an investor who bragged about being a crowd follower; therefore, everyone is a contrarian. Contrarian investing is very difficult as it requires one to be on the lonely side of the ledger as truly great opportunities present themselves in stocks that everyone [...]
I wrote this article for FT in 2005, but after reading news on Pfizer it feels like I could have written it today.
Here are some excerpts from the article:
Blockbuster success is a double-edged sword. In this litigious society a discovery of side-effects brings an army of tort lawyers to the doorsteps of pharmaceutical companies.
The demographic trends [...]