Cambridge, MA-based biotech giant Genzyme (NASDAQ: [[ticker:GENZ]]) announced today that its board voted to initiate a $2 billion stock repurchase plan to boost the stock price. The company plans to spend $1 billion to buy back shares in the near term, to finance the purchases with debt, and then spend another $1 billion in the next 12 months. The announcement also noted the company is pursuing “strategic alternatives” for its genetic testing, diagnostics, and pharmaceutical intermediates divisions, which could come in the form of spin-outs or management buyouts. The initiatives were outlined by the company shortly after Genzyme investor Carl Icahn has called for CEO Henri Termeer to be removed from the board in the wake of manufacturing problems at the company’s Allston site.
Author: Erin Kutz
Erin Kutz has a background in covering business, politics and general news. She holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Boston University. Erin previously worked in the Boston bureau of Reuters, where she wrote articles on the investment management and mutual fund industries. While in college, she researched for USA Today reporter Jayne O’Donnell’s book, Gen Buy: How Tweens, Teens and Twenty-Somethings Are Revolutionizing Retail. She also spent a semester in Washington, DC, reporting Capitol Hill stories as a correspondent for two Connecticut newspapers and interning in the Money section of USA Today, where she assisted with coverage on the retail and small business beats. Erin got her first taste of reporting at Boston University’s independent student newspaper, as a city section reporter and fact checker and editor of the paper’s weekly business section.
View all posts by Erin Kutz
