** Lab equipment maker Waters Corp WAT.N will merge with Becton, Dickinson and Company's BDX.N Biosciences & Diagnostic Solutions business in a stock and cash deal valued at $17.5 billion, the companies said on Monday
** Shares of WAT closed 13.8% lower on Monday
** At least 2 brokerages cut PT on WAT
FODDER FOR THE BULLS AND THE BEARS
** Leerink Partners ("outperform") says investors familiar with WAT CEO Udit Batra's orchestration of the Merck KGaA MRCG.DE - Sigma Aldrich deal are more likely to find comfort in the BDX deal
** "Simply put – investors do expect the business to perform far better under WAT than with BDX" - Leerink
** Jefferies ("buy", PT: $435) expects the story in the near term to stay noisy with debates around synergies and growth
** "Perhaps not surprising given the size of the deal, we have seen fodder for the bulls and the bears as investors digest the news"- Jefferies
** Morningstar (fair value: $330) says WAT may be paying too much, even when considering aggressive synergy targets, and believes BDX's business looks like a lower quality than WAT's legacy business
(Reporting by Padmanabhan Ananthan)
((Padmanabhan.Ananthan@thomsonreuters.com))
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