No Roche/Novartis merger, says ex-chairman Gerber

Fritz Gerber, spokesman for the shareholders on Roche's supervisoryboard and a former chairman of the Swiss drug major, has clashed publicly with Daniel Vasella, chief executive of Novartis, rejecting his claims that both Basel (the home of both firms) and the company's shareholders would benefit if Novartis took over Roche (see page 2).

Mr Gerber said "Roche wants no merger," and added that the Oeri and Hoffmann family shareholders (who control 50.1% of the company's voting shares) are "firmly convinced" that Roche already had all the advantages of size, quality and position in the world drugs market in order to remain successfully active as an independent company. In an interview with the Swiss newspaper Neue Zuercher Zeitung, Mr Gerber pointed to what he termed the "special Roche culture" that gave it a responsibility not only to shareholders but also to the workforce and the Basel region. He rejected speculation that the two companies were actually working secretly towards a collaboration, repeating that "we do not want a merger."

However, he saw one positive aspect in the situation in that Novartis' willingness to pay a further 3 billion Swiss francs ($2.22 billion) to increase its stake to 32.7% showed how highly Novartis rated Roche's performance. Mr Gerber went on to say that, naturally, they had to take Novartis' strong participation "very seriously," although he welcomed the fact that Novartis - in contrast to the entrepreneur and industrialist Martin Ebner (Marketletters passim) - did not want to have a seat on Roche's supervisory board.