---
title: "Bristol-Myers → Squibb"
url: "https://mahouse.world/ma-deals/bristol-myers-buy-squibb-1989"
type: "M&A deal"
year: "1989"
---

# Bristol-Myers → Squibb

A friendly $12bn share swap agreed in July 1989 that joined Bristol-Myers, a maker of consumer brands and cancer drugs, with Squibb, maker of the blood-pressure drug Capoten, and left only Merck larger among the world's drug companies.

An all-stock merger that created what was then the second-largest pharmaceutical company in the world.

- **Acquirer:** Bristol-Myers (United States)
- **Target:** Squibb (United States)
- **Value:** $12.5B
- **Announced:** July 1989
- **Completed:** October 1989
- **Sector:** Pharma
- **Deal type:** merger

## Why it mattered

Each side had what the other lacked. Bristol-Myers sold Ban, Excedrin and Drano alongside its prescription medicines and needed new drugs; Squibb had a near-lock on the hypertension market but leaned heavily on one product, Capoten, which had sales of $1.065bn in 1988 and faced newer rivals. As one analyst put it, Bristol-Myers needed Squibb's drugs and Squibb needed diversity.

Under the agreement signed on 26 July, Bristol-Myers exchanged 2.4 of its shares for each Squibb share, issuing about 242 million shares worth $11.98bn at the next day's close. Squibb's stock jumped $24.75 to $112.50. To discourage hostile interlopers, Squibb gave Bristol-Myers an option to buy about 20% of its shares at $123.90, and the two signed a marketing agreement that took effect at once, whether or not the merger closed. The deal was the largest in a wave that included SmithKline Beckman's merger with Beecham and Eastman Kodak's purchase of Sterling Drug. Shareholders of both companies approved it on 3 October 1989, when it was valued at $12.5bn; Bristol-Myers' Richard Gelb became chairman and chief executive and Squibb's Richard Furlaud president. One analyst judged that Squibb had "captured the bulk of the benefits of combination".

## What it left behind

In the decades that followed, Bristol-Myers Squibb took the diversified company apart. Capoten lost US market exclusivity in February 1996. Clairol went to Procter & Gamble for $4.95bn and Zimmer was spun off, both in 2001; the infant-nutrition business Mead Johnson was split off in 2009 and its European consumer-health business, UPSA, was sold to Taisho in 2019. Along the way came an accounting scandal over inflated 1999–2001 sales, settled for $150m. Growth was bought instead: Medarex in 2009, Celgene for $74bn in 2019 and Karuna Therapeutics for $14bn in 2024. By 2025 Eliquis and Opdivo supplied about half its revenue, and the former Squibb site at Lawrence, New Jersey, remained one of its main research centres. Pairing a one-drug company with a diversified partner bought time rather than a pipeline; the value in the end came from the acquisitions and disposals that followed.

Source: https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1989-07-28-fi-295-story.html