Comment by erikgaas

I've been reading the book. The important part is in 2004 they were offered to be acquired by serono. Because of their governance they were able to say no to the acquisition. Meanwhile serono was later acquired by merck and largely shut down. Back in 2004 novo was about $2.5 a share. Now at its current price even after a huge downturn it is $43.3 So that 17x gain you can attribute advantages with how they governed themselves at that time. Is it a silver bullet or always make stock go up and to the right? No of course not. Are they making governance mistakes now? I'm not sure. But most companies probably would have sold for a ton of cash and if so everyone would have missed out on huge gains, not just in money but in technology and public good.