Three Brief Items

1. Genzyme Refocus

The Wall Street Journal yesterday told us that Genzyme is selling one of its non-core units, its genetic-testing business, as part of its effort to "fend off" the takeover efforts of Sanofi-Aventis SA.

Genzyme is apparently trying to rid itself of two other units also, a diagnostics concern (that sells tests and testing supplies) and a pharma intermediaries operation. The proceeds from these sales are supposed to go into a pot whence the company will buy back $2 billion of its stock.

2. Mike Castle

Rep. Mike Castle (R-Del.) lost a hotly contested primary campaign in yesterday's voting in Delaware. The usual characterization of this race has been that Castle represents the Republican "establishment" while Christine O'Donnell is the Palin-endorsed, tea-partying "insurgent." As my use of scare quotes indicates, I take such characterizations with more than a grain of salt -- and I don't take salt in my tea. Here's a story from Monday from the AP, about the home stretch of that campaign.

What I do know about Mike Castle, though, is that he was half of the team of Capuano and Castle. Together, he and Michael Capuano (D-Mass.) introduced the Hedge Fund Adviser Registration Act of 2009. It didn't become law as such, but it was one important step in the long legislative history that led to Dodd-Frank, the bill that did become law (with Castle's support)in July 2010.

3. Casey's General Stores

The logic behind consolidation in the retail "convenience outlets" market remains strong. The situation with regard to Casey's General Stores remains confusing.

As regular readers of Proxy Partisans may remember, Alimentation Couche-Tard, the Canadian convenience store concern that owns the Circle K brand, bid $36 a share for Casey's in April, and raised that to $36.75 in May. That price valued Casey's at $1.9 million.

Casey's has resisted, and to good effect. On September 1 the bid went up again, to $38.50 per share.

Even since then, there's a new suitor. Casey's has revealed that it is in talks with a white knight, 7-Eleven Inc. They are talking about a $40 a share offer, though so far that is merely vapor.

Three brief items

1. Auction for Genzyme?

Genzyme Corp., a biopharm company based in Cambridge, Mass., has rejected a takeover offer from Sanofi-Aventis, the largest drug manufacturer in France.

According to a Bloomberg story, the discussions thus far have been informal, but "Sanofi may send a formal letter to Genzyme detailing its interest in an acquisition as soon as this week."

Genzyme has had the pleasure of Carl Icahn's company for some time now. Icahn curently controls two seats on the board. Icahn will surely make his views on the subject known if this does play itself out over the weeks to come.

GlaxoSmithKline is also sometimes mentioned as an interested party, so a real auction for Genzyme is a possibility.

2. Higher cross-border bid.

Alimentation Couche-Tard, the Canadian convenience store concern that owns the Circle K brand, has increased its bid for Casey's General Stores. It was bidding $36 a share in April and has now raised that to $36.75.

This values Casey's at $1.9 million, including debt says DealBook.

The offer expires at 5 PM on August 6 -- which, it so happens, is my baby sister's birthday. (Hello, Beth!)

Oh, and perhaps I' naive, but this strikes me as odd.

3. GSI Group Emerges from Chapter 11.

GSI is a multi-national family of companies that supply parts ("precision technology") to the medical, electronics, and industrial markets. Parts that, so far as I can tell, involve lasers.

Three of the entities within this family filed for chapter 11 reorganization in November 2009, in Delaware: GSI Group Inc., the parent Canadian holding company; GSI Group Corp., of Massachusetts; and MES International, Inc., a non-operating subsidiary of GSI Group Corp.

But now they have returned from that legal world of the undead to that of the truly living.

The Boston Business Journal, in May, described the descent into bankruptcy as
"a slew of regulatory and accounting setbacks that stemmed from revenue-booking practices between 2004 and 2008."

That got me curious, so I went here. Seventeen months ago, and eight months before its bankruptcy filing, GSI announced the results of an internal accounting probe and admitted to material revenue-recognition errors.

Cross-border spitting match

Alimentation Couche-Tard Inc., a company popularly known simply as Couche-Tard (from the French for "goes to bed late") is a Canadian convenience-store chain, with a headquarters in Laval, Quebec, and a listing on the Toronto Stock Exchange.

Couche-Tard seeks to acquire Casey's General Stores, an Iowa-based company in the same business. Casey's board refers to this as a “self-serving and transparent attempt by Couche-Tard to take significant value that rightly belongs to Casey’s shareholders.”

Or, as paraphrased by Andrew Willis of the Torontoi Globe & Mail: "Get lost.".

On Friday, Casey's announced that it has filed a lawsuit alleging a market manipulation scheme. From their release: "Couche-Tard had accumulated a stake of 1,975,362 Casey’s shares, which represented approximately 3.9% of the issued shares of Casey’s. Shortly after Couche-Tard made public its offer of $36.00 per share on April 9, it sold almost all of its shares at a price of $38.43 per share. The 1,975,000 shares sold by Couche-Tard on April 9 represented 17% of the total trading volume in Casey's stock during market hours on that day."

Couche-Tard replies: The lawsuit "is entirely without merit and we will vigorously defend against these baseless claims. We are disappointed that the Casey’s Board of Directors has chosen to proceed down this path, which we believe is designed to distract Casey's shareholders from focusing on the real issue – our all cash, premium bid for Casey’s."

My own biases are with Couche-Tard, as the recourse to the courts in such matters is generically an effort to protect an incumbent company from the verdict of the markets. But I am, as always, happy to hear my readers' views.