Investors got an M&A treat Monday that offered two different views of the financial food chain — in the pharmaceutical sector, a big fish ate a little fish, and in the energy sector, a big fish ate … well, another pretty big fish.
The big news of the day was the pairing of North America’s largest natural gas pipeline operators through Kinder Morgan Energy Partners LP’s (NYSE:) $21 billion acquisition — announced Sunday — of El Paso Corp. (NYSE:). While natural gas prices — from $4.40 per million Btu (MMBtu) at the end of July to just $3.54 per MMBtu last week — more energy companies are hitting the shale fields to capture what’s expected to be a growing source of energy throughout the continent for the next few years.
According to Reuters, Kinder Morgan will buy El Paso to its Oct. 14 value. On the first trading day following the deal, EP stock took a roughly 25% booster shot, from 19.59 at Friday’s close to $24.45 at Monday’s end. However, El Paso Pipeline Partners, L.P. (NYSE:) fell 10.05% to $3.82. Everything Kinder shined, with KMP stock ending the day up 5.08% at $75.14, Kinder Morgan Management (NYSE:) up 5.28% to $65.76 and Kinder Morgan Inc. (NYSE:) up 4.83% to $28.19.
More quietly heralded on Monday was European pharmaceutical giant Roche Holding AG’s
of American small-cap Anadys Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:). The acquisition was made to bolster the Swiss company’s presence in the Hepatitis C medicine market, as well as to help it move into treatment of more widespread diseases.
While Roche already produces Pegasys, which totaled $1.5 billion in sales in 2010, Anadys’ experimental drug Setrobuvir has shown promise and could be another way to treat the 180 million-plus people globally suffering from hepatitis. Roche, which trades primarily on the SIX Swiss Exchange, was down 0.77% Monday. The real winners were Anadys shareholders, who saw this particular investment gain 253% (to $3.67), just by waking up in the morning.
In the run-up to Apple’s (NASDAQ:) earnings report, due out Tuesday after the bell, AAPL shares slid about half a percent to $419.99. This movement came despite a report out Monday that Apple had sold 4 million iPhone 4S units in just three days, crushing even the paces of previous blockbuster sales for the iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS and iPhone 4.
Three Up
- Walgreen (NYSE:) was up 2.7% (89 cents) to $33.89.
- China Unicom (NYSE:) was up 2.04% (39 cents) to $19.51.
- Family Dollar (NYSE:) was up 1.69% (92 cents) to $55.32.
Three Down
- Green Mountain Coffee Roasters (NASDAQ:) was down 10.41% ($9.59) to $82.50.
- Alcoa (NYSE:) was down 6.63% (68 cents) to $9.58.
- Research In Motion (NASDAQ:) was down 6.55% ($1.57) to $22.40.
One Down Late
- Crocs, Inc. (NASDAQ:) was down 35.06% ($9.34) to $17.30 in after-hours trading.
As of this writing, Kyle Woodley did not own a position in any of the aforementioned stocks. Check out recaps from previous trading days here.
