"But if you read through the Life Sciences background-to-the-transaction section, and then the entire proxy and the merger agreement, you see that there is something else odd: no one wants to be associated with this company. This is the first merger agreement I have seen in years where the lawyers are not listed in the notice provisions — in fact, they are unidentified; the lenders on the financing are also not disclosed; nor is the auditor — disclosed in its Form 10-K, expect a local one I have never heard of.

The reason is almost certainly that Life Sciences is a target of protests by advocates for animal rights, through its ownership of the Huntingdon facility in Britain. Since 1999, the company’s management, employees and others associated with the facility have been perhaps the biggest targets of the European animal rights movement. In fact, look at page 19 of this presentation given by the investment bankers to Life Sciences’ special committee. When was the last time a board considered animal rights issues in their sale? And you’ll note the slide detailing these activities is blank for confidentiality reasons.

The animal rights problem clearly affected this whole process. Two of the four bidders cited these issues for their refusal to bid, and Life Sciences trades 40 percent to 50 percent below its peers on Ebitda and price-to-earnings multiples because of it."