Today is the expected closing day of the merger between Celgene (NASDAQ:CELG) and Bristol-Myers Squibb (NYSE:BMY). All regulatory approvals have been received so there is basically nothing anymore that could derail this deal. Bristol-Myers is acquiring the company for one share of stock, a $50 cash payment and a CVR that will pay an additional $9 dollar if, and only if, three treatments that are in development receive FDA approval. With CELG trading at $107.80 at the moment of writing and BMY trading at $55.70 investors can buy the CVR for $2.10.

A hint that this might be on the cheap side can be found in this SEC filing made by Bristol-Myers in May earlier this year where the company puts an estimated fair value of $3.83 on the CVR. They don’t provide an break down how they arrived at this value, only this:

The preliminary estimate of the fair value of the CVRs was determined by applying a probability weighting to the potential $9.00 per share payment reflecting the probability of achieving all three necessary approvals. The probability-weighted value was then discounted to present value using a credit risk-adjusted discount rate.

Since that time all three treatments have progressed as planned, so presumably if they would redo this valuation today it would be higher. The three approvals that they need to get are:

• Ozanimod (by December 31, 2020)
• Liso-cel (JCAR017) (by December 31, 2020)
• Ide-cel (bb2121) (by March 31, 2021)

These deadlines seem to be tight, and the combined probability of three events happening is obviously quite a bit lower than the probability of individual events, so there is reason not to be too enthusiastic about the CVR. But these treatments are all in a very developed stage of development, and the base rates of success of going from Phase III to approval or from NDA/BLA to approval are quite high. Celgene gave the following update with regards to above treatments when the company announced their results for the third quarter:

I’m not a medical expert, but given that base rates for success at this point are pretty high I think you could even make a case that the $3.83 valuation made by Bristol-Myers is somewhat conservative. These are all events that should be in the range of 75%-85% or something like that and taking very crudely 75%^3*$9 gives us a value of $3.80. This ignores that time value of money, but given that the deadlines are all relatively soon I think that doesn’t matter too much.

Because the deal will close very soon and I think that right now the CVR is probably attractively priced I bought a significant amount of CELG with a corresponding short position in BMY.

Disclosure

Author is long CELG, short BMY