Merck Completes Tender Offer To Buy Idenix

(RTTNews) - Healthcare giant Merck & Co. Inc. (MRK) Tuesday announced the successful completion of the tender offer for all shares of Idenix Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (IDIX) at a purchase price of $24.50 per share.

As of the tender offer expiration yesterday, around 131.69 million shares of common stock of Idenix were validly tendered and not withdrawn from the tender offer. This represents about 82.5 percent of the outstanding common stock of Idenix.

Merck expects to complete the acquisition of Idenix later today through a merger of Merck's wholly-owned subsidiary with and into Idenix without stockholder approval.

Upon completion of the merger, Idenix will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Merck and the common stock of Idenix will cease to be traded on the NASDAQ Stock Market.

Merck shares settled on Monday at $57.06, up $0.26 or 0.46 percent.