The bid intrigue surrounding Smith and Nephew refuses to die down, with talk of interest from US rival Biomet helping push the UK company's shares up nearly 4%.
To recap, S&N was said to have received and rejected a 750p a share offer from Johnson & Johnson before Christmas, although neither side has seen fit to inform the market as to the truth of the matter. Since then it seems clear that S&N is in play, with analysts and investors scouting round to find other possible bidders. Stryker is one often mentioned, as is private equity owned Biomet.
Today came a report that Biomet was set to begin informal talks with S&N about a £15bn merger, although since Biomet has high levels of debt, any deal would be unlikely to be a cash offer and would require a complicated structure to make the sums add up.
Again there has been no response - yet - from any of the companies involved, but the report has helped push S&N shares 25.5p higher to 710p.
