Wall Street Mixed On Additional Upside in Cephalon (CEPH) Following Takeover Bid

With shares of Cephalon (Nasdaq: CEPH) currently trading sharply over the $73 per share offer announced by Valeant Pharma (NYSE: VRX) Tuesday night, investors are clearly betting on further upside -- either through an increased bid from Valeant or from a new, yet-to-be-named suitor.

On the other side of Wall Street, let's see where analysts are betting:

• Oppenheimer - Says Valeant seems open to negotiations and thus Cephalon could get a higher bid. Sees Cephalon shareholders eventually approving a deal given likely issues with the company's CNS franchise in 2012-2013.
  
  
• Gabelli - Believes Valeant or a new bidder will buy Cephalon at $80 per share when everything is said and done.
  
  
• Collins Stewart - Estimates a deal with Cephalon could add as much as $20 per share onto Valeant's stock price given possible accretion.
  
  
• Jefferies - "It is difficult for us to envision any company willing to be as aggressive as Valeant in cutting the costs and hence any wouldbe white knight would need to place tremendous value on the pipeline. And in the absence of more Phase 3 data, we do not think there are many companies willing to make this large a leap of faith."
  
  
• Hapoalim - Assuming Valeant does its due diligence and is able to find an extra $100 million in trough-year net income, the firm argues the current bid could be increased to $1 billion or to about $86 per share.
  
  
• Barclays - Does not expect a competing bid or price hike given risks to Cephalon's core business and approaching patent cliff next year.
  
  
• Soleil - Believes the $73 per share bid will likely be the highest bid for Cephalon.
  
  
• Baird - "We do not believe CEPH investors ascribed meaningfully more upside to the pipeline and expect this transaction to complete at/slightly-above the offer price +/- contingent consideration."

Track all the analyst action on Cephalon shares following the Valeant offer with our Analyst Ratings page.

Shares of Cephalon last traded at $75.35, up 28.2 percent.

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