Two years before the turn of the millennium, two UK pharmaceutical giants planned a massive, £100bn merger. GlaxoWellcome and SmithKline Beecham were two of the country's biggest companies and together they would have formed the world's largest drugs company.
The combined company, said analysts at the time, would be "totally untouchable". There were few product overlaps and significant cost savings. Barely a month later, the talks collapsed with hundreds of millions of pounds being wiped off the value of the two companies as a result.
Shareholders, analysts and rivals were bemused about what might have gone wrong. SmithKline cited only "insurmountable differences" such as its "approach to the possible merger, management philosophy and corporate culture."
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