GSK sells £886m stake in Sensodyne owner Haleon

GSK has received another huge payout after divesting a stake in consumer healthcare spin-off Haleon.

The pharmaceutical giant told investors on Friday that it had raised around £885.6m from the sale of 270m Haleon shares at 328p each, reducing its shareholding in the company from 10.3 per cent to around 7.4 per cent .

When GSK and Pfizer spun off Haleon in July last year, the former retained a 12.9 percent stake in the company, while the US drugmaker owned just under a third of the shares.

Since then, GSK has sought to reduce its stake in Haleon, whose brands include Nicorette gum and Sensodyne toothpaste, to strengthen its balance sheet and finance its drug pipeline.

In May, the FTSE 100 group – previously called GlaxoSmithKline – raised around £804 million after selling 240 million shares in the company.

Rival Pfizer also plans to reduce its stock holdings to give more money to investors and reduce debt related to its planned $43 billion acquisition of Seagen, the developer of cancer treatments.

Over the summer, Chief Financial Officer David Denton said told the Financial Times that the company would start selling shares at a “slow and methodical” pace.

“We like the Haleon business, but it’s not strategic,” he added.

Following the latest share sale, both Pfizer and GSK agreed not to sell any further Haleon shares for 60 days.

The pair merged their respective consumer healthcare businesses as part of a joint venture in 2019, with the intention of spinning them off into a separate company listed on the London Stock Exchange within three years.

Haleon had a market valuation of £31 billion at its IPO, the largest in Britain and Europe since the listing of commodities trader Glencore more than a decade earlier for £37 billion.

Prior to the spin-off, the company was the target of an ambitious £50 billion takeover bid from Ben & Jerry’s owner Unilever, but this was firmly rejected by GSK management.

As part of the split, ex-Tesco boss Sir Dave Lewis became chairman of Haleon, while the CEO role went to Brian McNamara, the former head of GSK’s consumer healthcare division, who was instrumental in setting up the joint venture .

In its latest half-year results, the company raised its annual revenue guidance after price increases helped sales grow 10 percent to £5.74 billion for the six months ending June.

GSK shares were 0.7 percent higher at 1,492.8p early Friday afternoon. Haleon Stocks were 0.7 per cent lower at 333.9p, slightly above their IPO price of £3.30.