NEW YORK (Reuters) - Bayer AG (BAYG.DE: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) is not an obvious candidate to be bought by a larger drug maker, given its complex structure and potential political obstacles facing a foreign buyer, the group's head of health care said on Wednesday.
There has been persistent speculation this year that Pfizer Inc (PFE.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) or Novartis AG (NOVN.VX: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) might try to snap up the German pharmaceuticals-and-chemicals conglomerate, which has a market capitalization of around 30 billion euros ($38 billion).
But Arthur Higgins, chief executive of Bayer HealthCare, the company's most profitable division, poured cold water on the idea.
"We don't comment on rumors but these are not very well-founded," he told the Reuters Health Summit in New York.
"Don't get me wrong: they've all looked at us, because you'd be crazy not to -- if you didn't have those impediments, we'd probably be top of the list."
Bayer boasts a healthy pipeline of new drugs and an attractive over-the-counter medicines business. But any acquisition by a pure pharmaceutical company would involve a tricky breakup of the group, since Bayer is also a global player in plastics and in agrochemicals.
"There is a natural protection that comes from who we are. We're still a conglomerate. We're far too complex for those companies that you've just described to even begin to imagine how they would deal with such complexity," Higgins said.
There would also be major political repercussions from the takeover of what Higgins described as a "German heritage company," which could well lead to objections from the government and the country's labor unions.
Bayer became a major champion for the German pharmaceutical sector when it bought its smaller rival, Schering AG, in 2006.
Pfizer and Novartis have consistently declined to comment on the takeover rumors.
(Reporting by Ben Hirschler and Sam Cage; editing by Matthew Lewis)
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