Procter & Gamble Votes to Pursue Warner-Lambert, American Home: Report
(
Updated from 5:32 p.m. EST.
)
Procter & Gamble's
(PG) - Get Procter & Gamble Company (The) Report
board approved plans to pursue an acquisition of both
American Home Products
(AHP)
and
Warner-Lambert
(WLA)
, a person familiar with the situation told
Bloomberg
.
An announcement could come as early as tomorrow, with formal negotiations to begin shortly and a transaction unveiled in as little as a week or two, the wire service said.
Bloomberg's
TheStreet Recommends
source said Procter & Gamble would be interested in a stock swap for the two drug companies.
Spokespeople for P&G and American Home separately declined to comment. A spokeswoman for Warner-Lambert couldn't immediately be reached for comment.
As
TheStreet.com/NYTimes.com
joint newsroom reported
Friday, speculation has raged for the past week that P&G might seek a takeover of Warner-Lambert, American Home or both. Rumors of a pending deal sent P&G's shares tumbling nearly 9% Friday.
After agreeing to a merger in early November with American Home, Warner-Lambert has been locked in a battle with
Pfizer
(PFE) - Get Pfizer Inc. Report
, which made its own hostile bid for the company. P&G is seen as a possible savior of Warner-Lambert, which reluctantly decided on Jan. 13 to negotiate with Pfizer.
A purchase of American Home and Warner-Lambert would make consumer-products giant P&G one of the world's largest pharmaceutical companies, rivaling the planned merger partners
Glaxo
(GLX)
and
SmithKline Beecham
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.
The deal would be by far the largest acquisition ever for P&G, which makes of Tide detergent, Crest toothpaste and Pampers diapers but now gets only 2% of revenue from pharmaceuticals. Its previous largest buy was last year's purchase of pet-food maker
Iams
for $2.3 billion.
