India's Sun Pharma raising $437M to expand, repair plants

India's credit rating agency, ICRA, said Sun Pharma Laboratories, a subsidiary of Sun Pharmaceutical Industries, plans to raise as much as $437 million in bank funding to enter new markets and accelerate its repair program at its troubled manufacturing plants, according to a report by the Economic Times.

ICRA said it has rated the bank loan plan AAA and said "the company is likely to remain strong" despite the challenges it has faced since its acquisition of Ranbaxy, which has impacted its earnings.

Sun bought a majority of Ranbaxy from Japan's Daiichi Sankyo in an all-stock $3.2 billion deal a year ago, positioning it as the largest drugmaker in India and the fifth largest generics maker in the world, the Economic Times reported.

Sun Pharma managing director Dilip Shanghvi

The fundraising plan comes as the company is involved in a "massive remedial process" of the manufacturing facilities that it acquired from Ranbaxy and its own plants, which have been cited by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for "non-compliance with good manufacturing practices," the report said.

In addition to the fundraising, Sun is also said to be in talks with Novartis ($NVS) to acquire the Swiss drugmaker's Japanese portfolio for upward of $400 million.

Sun's latest financial results showed it posting a 42% decline in net profit for the quarter ended September 2015.

- here's the story from the Economic Times