Pfizer Sells £3 Billion Of Shares In Sensodyne Maker Haleon
Pfizer Inc. has sold over £3 billion ($3.8 billion) of shares in Haleon Plc, the first step by the UK consumer health company’s biggest shareholder to reduce its 32% stake.
(Bloomberg) -- Pfizer Inc. has sold over £3 billion ($3.8 billion) of shares in Haleon Plc, the first step by the UK consumer health company’s biggest shareholder to reduce its 32% stake.
The US drugmaker sold more than 790 million shares, with nearly 600 million of those at £3.08 and the rest — the American Depositary Shares — at $7.85.
Pfizer has said for some time it intended to pare its holding in the maker of Centrum vitamins to focus on its pharma innovations. As part of the process, London-listed Haleon will buy back about £315 million of its shares from Pfizer, whose stake will shrink to about 23%.
The pricing of the shares on Tuesday saw the size of the global offer increase from 630 million ordinary shares announced on Monday to more than 790 million.
Shares of Haleon were relatively flat in early trading Tuesday, having dipped more than 2% on Monday. They’re now slightly down since the company was separated from GSK Plc in 2022 as the British drugmaker focuses on its pharma and vaccines business amid pressure from activist investor Elliott Investment Management.
Haleon was formed through a combination of GSK’s and Pfizer’s consumer-health units, with the US drugmaker keeping a stake. The company also makes other products like Sensodyne toothpaste and Panadol pain relief tablets.
GSK has raised more than £2.5 billion from three sell-downs of its shares in Haleon.
In recent years, pharma companies have moved to separate their consumer health and generic-drug entities as they narrow their focus to their core business of developing innovative treatments. Sanofi has also said it planned to spin out its consumer division, while Johnson & Johnson finalized its split from Kenvue in August.
Haleon is optimistic about the year ahead, saying in February that revenue could grow as much as 6% this year. The company has been cutting costs and paring its portfolio since the split from GSK.
The fact that Haleon sold shares at just a 4% discount to Friday’s price demonstrates solid investor demand for the stock, Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Diana Gomes wrote in a note Tuesday.
(Updates with share reaction, details of other consumer splits and analyst comment.)
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