Thursday's Winners & Losers: Millennium Pharmaceuticals
Millennium Pharmaceuticals
( MLNM) said Thursday that it will be acquired by Japan's largest drugmaker, Takeda Pharmaceuticals, in
-- the largest overseas acquisition by a Japanese drugmaker to date. Takeda is paying $25 a share, or a 53% premium to Millennium's closing price of $16.35 a share on Wednesday. Shares rose $7.99, or 48.9%, to $24.34.
Shares of
Yahoo!
(YHOO)
gathered steam following a report in the
Wall Street Journal
that it
to merging its online operations with
Time Warner's
(TWX)
AOL in a bid to rebuff
Microsoft's
(MSFT) - Get Report
unsolicited offer for the company.
Microsoft, which has made a $31-a-share offer for Yahoo!, is not sitting idle. It is reportedly talking to
News Corp.
(NWS) - Get Report
to partner on its Yahoo! bid.
Yahoo!'s stock rose 85 cents, or 3.1%, to $28.62. Microsoft was up 34 cents, or $1.2%, to $29.23.
Pharma stocks were also green, particularly
Wyeth
( WYE) and
Bristol-Myers Squibb
(BMY) - Get Report
, which added 4.2% and 2.7%, respectively.
Among other winners,
Ikon Office Solutions
( IKN) jumped 26.5% to $9.92. The Malvern, Pa.-based provider of document management solutions raised guidance for the second quarter, forecasting earnings per share between 22 cents and 24 cents, up from a previous look of 16 cents to 19 cents. Analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial were looking for 18 cents. Cross Research upgraded the stock to buy from hold with a price target of $11.
National Semiconductor
(NSM)
also gained $1.33, or 6.8%, to $20.77 following an upgrade to neutral from sell by Dhanda, the BofA analyst.
On the losing side,
Super Micro Computer
(SMCI) - Get Report
shares dropped 19.1% to $7.63. The provider of high-performance server solutions forecast third-quarter results for its fiscal 2008. Super Micro predicted revenue of $136.5 million to $137 million and EPS between 12 cents and 13 cents. Two analysts polled by Thomson are looking for EPS of 19 cents.
This article was written by a staff member of TheStreet.com.