Boston Scientific Makes Bid for Guidant

In early December, less than three weeks after Johnson & Johnson Inc. (J&J; New Brunswick, NJ) thought it had finally put the wraps on its nearly year-long ordeal to acquire Guidant Corp. (Indianapolis), who should emerge to put the whole deal on ice but rival cardiac device maker Boston Scientific Corp. (Natick, MA).

Boston Scientific's sweetened bid of nearly $25 billion quickly garnered the interest of Guidant management and shareholders. It was about $4 billion more that J&J's renegotiated offer, which Guidant appeared to accept reluctantly following months of damaging disclosures and recalls of nearly 300,000 of its implantable cardioverter defibrillators (ICDs) and cardiac pacemakers.

The bid is only $400,000 less than J&J's original $25.4 billion offer, and was made just days after Boston Scientific was itself rumored to be a takeover target.