Merck Gives Snapshot of Combined Company: $47B in Sales; Just $7.6B in Cash

(MoneyWatch)  Merck (MRK) has produced a set of numbers giving a look at the scale of the combined company with Schering-Plough. One surprise: The new company is still just a little bit smaller than the old Pfizer (PFE) was. The new Merck would have had annual sales $46.7 billion, compared to Pfizer's former annual sales of $48.3 billion (Pfizer's new merger with Wyeth will give it $71 billion in annual revenues).

The new Merck will also emerge with very little cash, just $7.6 billion through the first nine months of 2009. Old Merck had $21.8 billion in cash and Schering had $4.3 billion. That's because $18.6 billion went on "purchase accounting."

Some other stats on the new giant:

• Revenues through September 2009: $33.8 billion
• Sales and admin: $10.1 billion
• Net income: $6.4 billion
• R&D: $6.5 billion
• Cash: $7.6 billion
• Total assets: $116 billion
• Total liabilities: $52.8 billion

The revenue yield on every dollar spent on sales and marketing is $3.34, slightly better than you'd have expected if you took the average of the two separate companies' prior performance.

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