Pfizer to sell partial stake in Haleon for more than £2bn

Drugs giant Pfizer will offload a quarter of its stake in Sensodyne toothpaste producer Haleon for over £2billion.

The pharmaceutical group plans to lower its holding in Haleon, which also makes Panadol painkillers and Nicorette gum, from 32 per cent to 24 per cent.

It will sell about 630 million shares in the company at an offer price that is expected to be announced on or around 19 March and decided by a bookbuilding process.

Haleon said it would purchase £315million worth of shares as part of the offer, having committed to repurchase £500million of its own stock this year.

Based on Haleon’s latest share price, Pfizer could receive approximately £2.3billion in total from the sale.

Pfizer announced last May that it was looking to sell down its Haleon stake to fund shareholder returns and reduce debts incurred from the $43billion takeover of biotechnology company Seagen.

Dave Denton, Pfizer’s chief financial officer, said the sale would happen in a ‘slow and methodical’ manner in order not to compromise Haleon’s market valuation.

Haleon was formed in 2019 when Pfizer and fellow pharmaceutical firm GSK merged their consumer healthcare businesses, whose brands ranged from painkiller Advil to Aquafresh toothpaste and Beechams cold and flu relief.

It was spun off two years ago with a market value of about £31billion in what was the largest European listing since commodities business Glencore went public in 2011 on the London Stock Exchange.

A few months before the demerger, Ben & Jerry’s owner Unilever offered £50billion to acquire the joint venture.

However, GSK rejected the bid on the basis that it ‘fundamentally undervalued’ the company and its future prospects.

Since Haleon was listed in July 2022, London-listed GSK has gradually lowered its stake in the firm from 12.9 per cent to 4.2 per cent, having recently offloaded shares worth £1.86billion across October and January.

GSK – formerly GlaxoSmithKline – is pursuing the disposals in order to bolster its balance sheet, fund its drug pipeline and complete acquisitions.

Last month, the group agreed to spend $1billion upfront and up to $400million in success-based milestone payments for respiratory drugs specialist Aiolos Bio.

Haleon shares fell 2.1 per cent, or 6.85p, to 315.45p by late Monday afternoon, meaning they remain just below their £3.30 debut list price.