Roche Bids For Genentech

Roche announced a bid to take over the remaining shares of Genentech that it does not already own. Roche's Chairman of the Board, Franz Humer explains the rationale for the move:

"Our long and successful participation in Genentech has provided great benefits to both of our companies and shareholders. It has resulted in one of the biggest success stories in the healthcare industry. Roche's significant investment in Genentech over many years has helped it to focus on innovation and long-term projects, leading to some of the most important breakthroughs in the treatment of cancer and other life-threatening diseases.

The transaction will create a unique opportunity to evolve Roche's hub-and-spoke model into a structure that allows us to strengthen the focus on innovation and accelerate the search for new solutions for unmet medical needs. Combining the strengths of Roche and Genentech will create significant value and result in benefits for patients, employees and shareholders."

Unfortunately, according to reports, the move by Roche totally blindsided the people at Genentech. I guess the "unique opportunity" and "significant value"that Humer describes above wasn't so obvious to the people at Genentech.