UPDATE: Valeant ups bid for Salix by 9.5%, which is accepted

As had been widely expected, acquisitive Canadian drugmaker Valeant Pharmaceutical International (TSX: VRX) has improved on its original offer for the USA’s Salix Pharmaceuticals (Nasdaq: SLXP), following an unsolicited counter bid from Endo International (Nasdaq: ENDP) last week.

Under the amended offer, Valeant increased its bid to acquire all the outstanding common stock of Salix, which specializes in gastrointestinal drugs, from $158.00 per share to $173.00 per share in cash, or around $11.1 billion, for a total enterprise value of about $15.8 billion, through April 7, 2015. The revised offer price of $173.00 per share provides an additional approximately $1 billion in cash consideration to Salix stockholders, and represents an increase of 9.49% and 43.9%, respectively, over the original offer price of $158.00 per share and the unaffected price of Salix common stock on January 16, 2015, of $120.19.

Shares in Salix rose 1.5% to $172 in pre-market trading while Valeant is up 0.8% at $199. By mid-morning Salix gained 1.98% to $172.77.