U.S. pharmaceutical company AbbVie Inc recommended that shareholders vote against its $55 billion takeover of Shire Plc in the wake of a U.S. government move to curb deals designed to cut high taxes."The agreed upon valuation is no longer supported as a result of the changes to the tax rules and we did not believe it was in the best interests of our stockholders to proceed," AbbVie Chief Executive Richard Gonzalez said in a statement.Abbvie said its offer for Shire would not lapse and that it must convene a shareholder meeting before Dec. 14 to vote on the deal.Shire stands to be paid a break-up fee of about $1.64 billion if Abbvie's shareholders vote against the deal.
AbbVie Inc. (AbbVie) is a research-based pharmaceuticals company. Shares of ABBV traded higher by 0.92% or $0.5/share to $54.63. In the past year, the shares have traded as low as $45.50 and as high as $60.02. On average, 13893100 shares of ABBV exchange hands on a given day and today's volume is recorded at 122740856.
Source
