Opinion
Pfizer-Allergan: Why Growth At Any Price Is A Dangerous Game
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The bottom line is that this looks like a bad deal for the wrong company, at the wrong time and at the wrong price...
By Aswath Damodaran
The merger between Pfizer and Allergan that will make one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world even larger has drawn attention not just because of its magnitude, but also for its motives. While there is some desultory chatter about synergy (as is the case with every merger), this deal seems focused on two specific motivations: the first is that this is a bid by Pfizer to buy Allergan’s higher growth and the second is that this is a deal designed to save taxes. Not surprisingly, the latter is attracting attention not just from investors and financial journalists, but also from politicians.
Growth but at what cost?
One of the most dangerous maxims in both corporate finance and investing is that it is better to grow than to not grow, and that a company that faces stagnant or declining revenues (and income) should seek out higher growth (at any price). In a previous post, I looked at the value of growth and noted that the net effect of growth depends on how much you pay to get it, and that overpaying for growth will give you higher growth and a lower value. In the graph below, you can see the effect of growth on value for three companies, all of which grow, the first by making investments that generate returns that exceed the cost of capital, the second by making investments that earn the cost of capital and the third by making investments that earn less than the cost of capital.
It is this perspective on growth that makes me skeptical about companies that grow through acquisitions, especially when those acquisitions are big and are of public companies. Since you have to pay market price plus (a premium of 20-30%) to acquire a public company, for a growth-motivated acquisition to create value, you have to be able to find a growth company that is under valued by more than 20% or 30%, given its growth rate, at the time that you initiate the deal to be able to walk away with value added. Note that, much as I am tempted to do a riff about the wondrous benefits of bringing both Botox and Viagra under one corporate entity, I am deliberately keeping synergy out of the equation since it can justify a premium.
Read the full article as published in Forbes.
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Aswath Damodaran is the Kerschner Family Chair in Finance Education.
Growth but at what cost?
One of the most dangerous maxims in both corporate finance and investing is that it is better to grow than to not grow, and that a company that faces stagnant or declining revenues (and income) should seek out higher growth (at any price). In a previous post, I looked at the value of growth and noted that the net effect of growth depends on how much you pay to get it, and that overpaying for growth will give you higher growth and a lower value. In the graph below, you can see the effect of growth on value for three companies, all of which grow, the first by making investments that generate returns that exceed the cost of capital, the second by making investments that earn the cost of capital and the third by making investments that earn less than the cost of capital.
It is this perspective on growth that makes me skeptical about companies that grow through acquisitions, especially when those acquisitions are big and are of public companies. Since you have to pay market price plus (a premium of 20-30%) to acquire a public company, for a growth-motivated acquisition to create value, you have to be able to find a growth company that is under valued by more than 20% or 30%, given its growth rate, at the time that you initiate the deal to be able to walk away with value added. Note that, much as I am tempted to do a riff about the wondrous benefits of bringing both Botox and Viagra under one corporate entity, I am deliberately keeping synergy out of the equation since it can justify a premium.
Read the full article as published in Forbes.
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Aswath Damodaran is the Kerschner Family Chair in Finance Education.