London, July 16 (AFP\/APP): British drugs giant GlaxoSmithKline on Monday demerges its newly-named consumer healthcare unit Haleon, resulting in what is set to be London’s largest new stock market listing in more than a decade.<\/p>\n
The new company — owning brands including Sensodyne toothpaste, pain relief drug Panadol and cold treatment Theraflu — is set for a valuation of about \u00a340 billion ($47.4 billion) when it begins trading on the London stock market, according to Bloomberg.<\/p>\n
The major strategy shift by GSK chief executive Emma Walmsley comes after she has faced intense activist shareholder pressure over the company’s delays in producing Covid jabs and treatments.<\/p>\n
– ‘Landmark London listing –<\/p>\n
“This will be the largest London stock market listing in a decade, with the new company becoming a big beast with a new skin in the consumer goods world,” said Susannah Streeter, senior investment and markets analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown.<\/p>\n
It is set to be the capital’s biggest listing since Swiss mining giant Glencore was valued at \u00a338 billion on entry in 2011.<\/p>\n
GSK, which owns 68 percent of Haleon, plans to retain six percent of the group following the spin-off.<\/p>\n
US pharmaceutical titan Pfizer has said it plans to sell its 32-percent minority stake.<\/p>\n
Walmsley, who had led the consumer unit prior to her promotion as head of GSK in 2017, has described the demerger as the group’s most significant corporate change in 20 years.<\/p>\n
The split sees GSK “parcelling off a considerable quantity of its sizeable debt pile into Haleon, expected to be around \u00a310 billion”, Streeter said.<\/p>\n
Haleon could join London’s top-tier FTSE 100 depending on its market valuation.<\/p>\n
Walmsley, part of a group of less than 10 women chief executives running companies on the benchmark index, sees more long-term value in the demerger than a sale.<\/p>\n
GSK at the start of the year rejected a \u00a350 billion bid for the unit from consumer goods titan Unilever.<\/p>\n
– Vaccine push –<\/p>\n
Alongside the demerger, GSK is expanding further into the field of vaccines, having in May snapped up US biopharmaceutical firm Affinivax for up to $3.3 billion.
\nAlso this year, the British company spent $1.9 billion on US group Sierra Oncology, a specialist in medicines for rare forms of cancer.<\/p>\n
Keith Bowman, analyst at Interactive Investor, said the demerger was aimed at giving GSK “increased management focus to each respective business”.<\/p>\n
This was the case “particularly for its pharma business which has underperformed rivals such as (Covid vaccine-maker) AstraZeneca over recent years”, he told AFP.<\/p>\n
GSK is set to receive \u00a37 billion in dividends at separation.
\nThe consumer healthcare division, whose portfolio of products includes also Centrum multivitamins and anti-inflammatory Voltaren, generates annual sales of about \u00a310 billion.<\/p>\n
Haleon will be headquartered in Weybridge, southwest of London.
\n“The idea is that a more focused consumer business will help boost sales,” said Streeter.<\/p>\n
“There will be no change at the top… which is a vote of confidence in Brian McNamara, a former Procter & Gamble executive who has led the division for eight years.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
London, July 16 (AFP\/APP): British drugs giant GlaxoSmithKline on Monday demerges its newly-named consumer healthcare unit Haleon, resulting in what is set to be London’s largest new stock market listing in more than a decade. The new company — owning brands including Sensodyne toothpaste, pain […]<\/p>\n
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