Pfizer offloads $3.5 billion stake in Sensodyne-maker Haleon
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FILE PHOTO: Pfizer company logo is seen at a Pfizer office in Puurs, Belgium, December 2, 2022. REUTERS/Johanna Geron/File Photo
(Reuters) - Haleon said on Tuesday top shareholder Pfizer offloaded a roughly $3.5 billion stake in the consumer healthcare firm, bringing down its holding in the British company to 22.6%.
Pfizer previously held a 32% stake, followed by second-largest shareholder GSK which has a 4.2% holding.
WHY IT'S IMPORTANT
This is Pfizer's first stake sale in Haleon since the company was spun off from GSK and listed in 2022 - three years after its formation by combining the pharma giants' consumer healthcare units. Pfizer said last year it planned to cut its ownership in a "slow and methodical" manner within months.
Meanwhile, GSK, which initially held a 12.9% stake, has sold it down over the last year, with the last sale in January.
BY THE NUMBERS
Pfizer sold 594 million shares at a price of 3.08 pounds apiece and about 196.5 million American Depository Shares (ADS), at $7.85 each, which add up to roughly $3.1 billion.
This is higher than the 630 million share sale Haleon had disclosed on Monday. The maker of Sensodyne toothpaste and Advil painkillers said it would also repurchase 315 million pounds ($399.92 million) worth of shares from Pfizer off-market.
WHAT'S NEXT
The stake sale and the buyback is expected to close on March 21 and Pfizer's shares will be subject to a 90-day lock-up period, in connection with the sale.
($1 = 0.7876 pounds)
(This story has been corrected to fix the value of the stake sale to $3.5 bln, from $3.9 bln, in the headline and paragraph 1; also corrects to say stake sale value is $3.1 bln, excluding Haleon's off-market repurchases in paragraph 5; and fixes typo in paragraph 3)
(Reporting by Eva Mathews in Bengaluru; Editing by Saumyadeb Chakrabarty)
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