9:05am (EST)
Futures are pointing towards a slightly lower open this morning despite another round of M&A news as Wall Street kicks off the start of the week. There are a couple of economic reports due out this morning which could impact trading, pending home sales and factory orders for August are due out later this morning.
Pending home sales are expected to come in at 3% compared with a rise of 5.2% the month before, while factory orders likely fell 0.4% from a gain of 0.1% the previous month.
As far as merger and acquisitions news, Sanofi-Aventis (SNY, $33.12, down $0.13) has gone hostile as it tries to acquire Genzyme (GENZ, $70.88, down $0.11) for $69 per share, while Microsemi (MSCC, $17.11, down $0.01) has agreed to buy Actel (ACTL, $16.02, up $0.07) for about $21 a share.
The bid from Sanofi-Aventis is a slap in the face to Genzyme’s shareholders and will likely get rejected. The latest offer allows shareholders of Genzyme to vote “yes” or “no” directly for the $18.5 billion bid. The current bid that is on the table is the same offer from the summer as the price is unchanged from Sanofi’s first offer. Genzyme’s board has already rejected the bid as too low and we expect shareholders to follow suit.
As we head to press, Dow futures are lower by 30 points to 10,738 while the S&P 500 futures are down 4 ticks to 1,138. The Nasdaq 100 futures are lower by 8 points to 1,987.
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