Family values

Genzyme Corp. is well known for using creative financing structures to the best advantage of the mother company. Thus it should have come as no surprise that Genzyme General is taking advantage of the depressed stock market to fold Genzyme Biosurgery (GZBX) and Genzyme Molecular Oncology (GZMO) back into GENZ on the cheap - although that didn't stop holders of the two tracking stocks from complaining bitterly on the company's conference call last week.

Since GZMO is an early development stage company, the interesting metrics come from GZBX, which posted $240 million in sales last year. GENZ is buying GZBX for $71.9 million in stock (about 2 million shares), or 0.3 times 2002 sales. GZBX's market cap the Friday prior to last week's announcement was $91.7 million...