Antitrust regulators in the European Union are reportedly poised to give conditional clearance to the $25 billion merger of Abbott (NYSE:ABT) and St. Jude Medical (NYSE:STJ).
The European Commission has until next week to make its decision on the deal, after the companies earlier this month made concessions designed to assuage the commission’s monopoly fears. Abbott and St. Jude agreed last month to deal some of their vascular assets to Japan’s Terumo Corp. (TYO:4543) for $1 billion. The merger, announced in April, is slated to close by the end of this year.
Reuters, citing “a person familiar with the matter” yesterday, reported that the commission is ready to approve the deal. The European Commission, Abbott and St. Jude had no comment on the report, the news service reported.
St. Jude is facing down an attack from notorious short-seller Muddy Waters and cyber research firm MedSec Holdings over alleged security problems with its cardiac rhythm management devices (the company later assembled a cybersecurity advisory panel to guide its development efforts). The company last month warned of the possibility that a battery issue could disable its high-voltage CRM implants, saying the problem is associated with 2 deaths among the nearly 400,000 patients implanted with affected devices.
