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| Alere CEO Ron Zwanziger |
Former Alere executives, led by ex-CEO Ron Zwanziger, are putting together a $46-per-share takeover offer for the diagnostics company, according to a Sept. 15 SEC filing. Investors didn't embrace the offer entirely, but they did send shares up about 13% to $41.33 in midafternoon trading.
Alere ($ALR) had an ugly second-quarter earnings report in early August, about a month after Zwanziger resigned along with SVP of R&D Jerry McAleer and CSO Dave Scott. So, even with the latest share price uptick, Alere shares are up only about 1% year to date.
Zwanziger, along with Scott and McAleer, have been in discussions with "multiple parties to ascertain their interest in supporting an acquisition" of Alere, according to a Sept. 15 SEC filing.
Based on these discussions, the trio concluded that "such a transaction is financeable at a price of $46 per share or perhaps higher, depending on the results of due diligence," the filing said. The $3.82 billion offer from Zwanziger is a 25% premium to the stock's close on Sept. 12.
COO Namal Nawana also picked up an interim president and CEO title on July 1. He delivered the bad earnings news and detailed a strategic review the company expects to complete by year-end. Nawana said he could get the company back on track for organic revenue growth next year; he also expects to focus Alere on cardiometabolic disease, infectious disease and toxicology.
Noncore assets in oncology, women's health and veterinary products would be divested, although the company did not plan to revisit a potential spinoff for BBI Diagnostics products that had been pursued previously.
But the offer from the former executives could take the company off that planned path.
Zwanziger is already a major Alere shareholder with 3.9 million shares, or 4.68% of shares outstanding.
- here is the SEC filing
- see the coverage from Bloomberg and Reuters