Pfizer’s Real Issue: Identity Crisis Against Peers

The first thing to consider is that Pfizer and rival and fellow Dow Jones Industrial Average component Merck & Co. (NYSE: MRK) are both effectively making changes to their structures. The difference is that Merck shares are up 14% so far in 2014, while Pfizer shares are down about 2% year to date.

Again, this feels like an identity crisis issue. Pfizer was putting itself into a long-term restructuring. It was going to focus on three unit directions. But then came word of the AstraZeneca buyout — with a $90 billion current market cap, and an unknown amount that Pfizer might have ultimately paid had there been cooperation.

Pfizer’s ultimate goal may have been an effective tax maximization scheme. Pfizer now yields 3.5% due to its drop, versus 3.1% for Merck. Merck trades at about 3.3 times book value, versus about 2.4 times book for Pfizer.

What is interesting is that Wall Street analysts still have a consensus price target of $33.97 for Pfizer. This leaves 15% implied upside for the stock, plus there is that 3.5% dividend yield.

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Pfizer faces billions of dollars lost in a coming patent expiration cliff. Generics will not take over on all of those sales, but growth is hard to find at Pfizer. It trades at about 13 times next year’s earnings per share estimates, versus just over 15 times next year’s earnings expectations for Merck.

The big risk now seems to be worse than Pfizer deciding to go back after AstraZeneca: what if it goes after someone else? Wall Street was not at all sold that AstraZeneca was the right acquisition. What might the company do now if it thought AstraZeneca was the right M&A play?