Investors owning nearly a third of the Dutch market research firm VNU’s shares have spoken out against the company’s planned $7 billion acquisition of pharma industry info provider IMS Health.
Fidelity International and Fidelity Management Research said in a rare public statement that they wished “to go on record to express their opposition to the proposed purchase” of IMS.
Fidelity holds 14.99 percent of VNU’s shares.
Investor Knight Vinke Asset Management, which controls about 2 percent of VNU, said it intended to vote against the deal. And Templeton Global Advisors, which controls about 10 percent of VNU’s shares, with affiliates controlling a further 4 percent, told The Financial Times it did not support the merger “as presently proposed.”
Without support from these fund managers, the deal is unlikely to be completed, according to published reports.
At press time, a spokesman at IMS Health had yet to respond to MM&M’s request for comment.