Merck (MRK) is set to acquire Harpoon Therapeutics (HARP) in a deal valued at $680 million.
Twilio (TWLO) Co-Founder Jeff Lawson steps down as CEO amid pressures from activist investor groups.
Lastly, shares of footwear brand Crocs (CROX) have soared by over 20% on Monday after updating its guidance and full-year revenue forecasts for 2023.
For more expert insight and the latest market action, click here to watch this full episode of Yahoo Finance Live.
Editor's note: This article was written by Luke Carberry Mogan.
Video Transcript
MADISON MILLS: So let's get a look on some trending tickers. We're going to start it off with Merck, acquiring cancer drug maker, Harpoon Therapeutics. That deal valued at $680 million. Now closing of the acquisition, still pending approval from Harpoon shareholders. But, Josh, this is just the start of that big merger Monday that so many of our guests called out last year, saying that it was going to be the year for deals in the biotech space. And that's exactly what we're seeing here.
Maybe a little bit of a reward to Harpoon but a ding to Merck, especially this morning in the trade. Maybe some questions about whether or not the deal was fairly priced. But it does feel like these places that have been scooping up cancer drugs and cancer-related firms, that seems to be key, especially for some of those names in the pharma space that were tied to the COVID vaccines. It seems like that's where they're all kind of concentrating a lot of their capital around.
JOSH LIPTON: Yeah. And Bloomberg has a good explainer on harpoon, basically focuses on these drugs that use a patient's own immune system to kill tumor cells. And Merck, though, certainly has been busy, so beefing up its portfolio in October, agreed to buy the rights to sell Daiichi Sankyo's three experimental cancer drugs, then in April announced it was buying Prometheus, which makes autoimmune drugs for about 11 billion.
Stock has not done a whole lot. It's up about 5% in the past 12 months. Although, and maybe in part, because of that the Street loves this names. I mean, more than 80% of analysts covering Merck think you should buy it.
MADISON MILLS: Yeah. I mean, it's definitely had that positive reaction from analysts for some time now. So it seems like this is definitely a sign of, you know, positive sentiment surrounding the name that have a name like Merck scooping them up.
JOSH LIPTON: For sure. All right, moving on to a big move in the c-suite here. Check out shares of Twilio, they are rising today on news that co-founder Jeff Lawson will be stepping down as CEO. Chief Communication Officer Khozema Shipchandler will be taking the reins as it struggles with two activist investors pushing for significant changes there.
So this is a big change there. Co-founder Jeff Lawson, well-known, the face really of Twilio at the software company for a long time. We should also mention, another longtime board member, Jeff Epstein, who's a partner over there at Bessemer, replacing Lawson, it looks like, as chairman. Separately, Twilio also said it expects to report Q4 revenue and non-GAAP operating income above the high end of guidance.
And RBC's Rishi Jaluria covers Twilio and has for a long time, telling his clients the news today still leaves a lot of questions, he says, around ongoing activist involvement. Potentially, he says, for more divestitures or maybe he says an outright sale given that you saw this new CEO already talking here, Madison, about taking a fresh look at the areas of the business that are underperforming to realize the full potential of the business. That's why Rishi says, maybe divestitures or an outright sale could be on the way here.
MADISON MILLS: Yeah, it's interesting, because Shipchandler also, I remember seeing his name in the news last week because he sold off about $800,000 worth of shares in the company previously. Now, obviously, they're having a great day, so not a great move for his personal portfolio there when you look at the green on the screen for Twilio.
But also definitely a win for activist investors, right? It feels like given some of the news that we're seeing across the street, even when I think about a Peltz or just the other activist investors that we talk about all the time, it feels like they're starting to impact some of the fundamental moves at these companies, even a company as big as Twilio, right, Josh?
JOSH LIPTON: Yeah. And listen, Twilio has been dealing with some challenges. We know that the slower sales growth. Those activists you mentioned have been circling the company has responded. You saw a few different rounds of layoffs there. But we'll see what comes next with this new man in charge. Stocks up about 45% in the past 12 months.
MADISON MILLS: Well, something that I know you're going to be excited about, Josh-- Crocs, OK?
JOSH LIPTON: I'm more of a Birkenstock guy, you know that.
MADISON MILLS: I could tell given the crocodile shoes you've got on there with the cowboy boots, but this is about Crocs, right, one of the biggest movers on our platform today, surging after the company updated its guidance this morning. Crocs saying it expects record full-year revenue in 2023 up almost 11% compared to the prior year.
Now what interests me about the stellar performance of this name is when I was on the floor of the stock exchange this morning, I was asking the guys to give me some talking points for my hit about 30 seconds before air as I like to do. And they talked about the bad forward guidance of Genesco. This is a company that has Journeys, some other footwear names that you might see at a place like PacSun if you're in the mall, updating their forward guidance but not in the right direction for the Street.
And we know that a name like Nike, which we're going to get to their news in a bit, but they've been struggling on sales as well. So it makes it really interesting to look at the stellar performance that we're seeing in Crocs today, what is it about them that is making them outpace the rest of the footwear market here. Is it something more idiosyncratic? Is it that-- I hate to say, is it that Crocs are trending? I mean, maybe it's just something as simple as the footwear choice of our consumers. But you can see in the stock performance that Crocs starting to outpace some of those competitors that I mentioned here.
JOSH LIPTON: Yeah. I'm just looking over the analyst notes, too, just kind of reacting to these headlines say, some of the team at Stifel saying they are encouraged by the strong Q4 results and preliminary outlook, says it validates their expectations for earnings power at about 12 per share. They got to buy in the name target of 132.
We should point out, even with today's pop, the stock is in the red over the last year, though most on the Street fans, 10 buys, 4 holds, just 1 sell.
MADISON MILLS: Just 1 sell. And I mean, we never get a sell, so that's not great news. But it does indicate to me given the positivity that we're seeing in their forward guidance that this is a name that's going to have a good year.
