Glaxo Wellcome/SmithKline Beecham
Executive Summary
Glaxo Chairman Richard Sykes "thinks" the early 1998 break-up of merger talks between the two companies is "the end of the story," but believes that the logic behind the merger is still compelling. "I think there's been enough said about the merger breakdown," Sykes told a July 30 press conference in London. "There really is nothing more to say about it. The logic is still there, the reasons for doing a merger like that are still there, they're still compelling, but that was just an opportunity: it didn't work out, and I think that's the end of the story." Glaxo management is understood to have been working over the summer to try to resurrect the deal