Thursday 20 February 2014

Bayer, Novartis, others eye Merck's consumer health unit - but secondary sell-off more important...?

On a macro level, the anticipated $10bn to $12bn sale of Merck's consumer health unit will obviously change the balance of market influence, and no doubt add to the purchaser's selling muscle, especially in the UK. Whilst this big picture will be of significant interest to the major players - and the competition authorities - the inevitable brand fall-out will have more impact on the NAM day-job....

This secondary market, as the purchaser moves to sell off those brands judged to be in conflict with competition legislation when combined with their product portfolio, will inevitably yield useful insights as the sales proceed.

Ideally, Merck would have wished to sell off individual brands separately to optimise shareholder value, but setting appropriate prices with multiple purchasers would have been more distracting in the long term, compared with making a clean all-in-one sale and getting on with focusing on the core non-consumer business.

Now, apart from assessing the insights revealed in the major sale process, NAMs in appropriate categories should focus on the potential impact of brands such as Coppertone sunscreen, Claritin allergy treatment, Dr. Scholl's foot care and other consumer products, not quite fitting the purchaser's needs and being sold to other players...

In other words, NAMs can now anticipate the secondary sale impact by conducting Buying Mix Analyses for each of the Merck brands on their categories to plan appropriate moves in what will become a fast-moving exchange of category components...

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