
Consumer products, a great game between pharma majors
Pharmaceuticals Majors on pininvest.com
- 16 constituents
- 7.6% 1y performance
- 26.7% volatility
Glaxo Smith Kline , just a few days after withdrawing as a potential buyer of the consumer health division Pfizer intends to auction, exercised an option to buy out the minority stake (36,5%) Novartis held in a joint venture of consumer health created in 2015 - for an agreed $13bn in cash
For Novartis, the move is about divesting non-core assets (eye care treatment Alcon and the US generics business are also being mentioned). Could the company be planning a take-over in the healthcare sector ?
For Glaxo, full control of the large consumer healthcare division, of which the new CEO, Ms E. Walmsley was previously in charge, opens an option - either to grow a business which is more stable than research-dependent pharmaceuticals or spin-off this very large division when the time is right
The market is responding positively and the shares of both companies are up. The real question is what Novartis is planning for the not so distant future