Alliance Pharma agrees £350m takeover bid
Alliance Pharma has accepted a £350m takeover bid from its largest shareholder DBAY Affiliates.
The Chippenham-headquartered healthcare group sells over-the-counter and prescription drugs around the world, with its brands including Kelo-Cote, Anbesol and Lypsyl.
The 62.5p-per-share, all-cash offer is at a 41% premium to last night’s closing share price, and more than double the value when DBAY first made an approach to the Alliance board – in the wake of the chief executive Peter Butterfield departing and its annual results being delayed last May.
Asset management firm DBAY has been acquiring Alliance shares for more than two years and now controls 27.9% of the company.
In a statement, it said: “DBAY is supportive of Alliance’s leadership team and believes in Alliance’s future prospects but considers that Alliance needs to implement a range of operational and strategic initiatives, in conjunction with a period of accelerated investment and selective acquisitions of complementary products, in order to fulfil the growth potential of the business.
“It has become apparent to DBAY that Alliance needs time away from the public market to allow it to fully deliver these initiatives in a reasonable timeframe.”
Alliance faces some international challenges. Around 30% of its revenue comes from China, “and a much larger proportion of profit”, it said, which it acknowledges is “exposed to significant geopolitical risk”. Separately, its North Amercian business has seen declining revenues for two years.
