Following a similar move in March, Pfizer is offloading another tranche of Haleon shares. The sale is part of a broader scheme by GSK and Pfizer to reduce their holdings in the consumer health venture they formed back in 2019.
Pfizer has sold 640 million shares in Haleon for 380 pence (roughly $5.09) a piece. The sale amounts to a total value of 2.43 billion pounds sterling (about $3.26 billion), Goldman Sachs International said in a filing on the London Stock Exchange Tuesday.
The deal, which is expected to settle Oct. 3, leaves Pfizer with around 701 million shares in the GSK consumer health spinoff, reducing the Big Pharma’s total interest in Haleon from 22.6% to 15%.
Haleon, for its part, has agreed to buy back around 60.5 million shares from Pfizer at the same stock price for a total of 230 million pounds ($306 million).
Haleon—which sells popular household brands like Advil, Sensodyne, Tums and Theraflu—got its start when GSK and Pfizer teamed up on a consumer health joint venture in 2019. GSK, which originally owned 68% of the over-the-counter outfit, subsequently spun off Haleon as a standalone company in the summer of 2022.
GSK and Pfizer have been clear about their intentions to reduce their stakes in Haleon.
In May 2023, Pfizer’s chief financial officer, David Denton, told the Financial Times that the drugmaker was prepared to monetize its stake in Haleon in a “slow and methodical” manner.
Pfizer made good on that promise in March when it sold 791 million ordinary shares in a public offering and 102 million more directly to Haleon for $3.5 billion.
GSK, which retained a 13% stake in Haleon following the spinoff, has subsequently sold off all its interest in the company after agreeing to pawn off its remaining 4.2% holding in Haleon in May. That deal amounted to a total value of around $1.58 billion.
The Haleon saga is part of a broader trend in which large pharma companies have separated their consumer health ventures. Johnson & Johnson and Merck have charted similar moves in recent years. Last October, Sanofi confirmed its plan to split from its own consumer group.
For all of 2023, Haleon brought home revenues of 11.3 billion pounds ($14.4 billion), marking a 4% decrease from 2022. The company has said it expects sales to grow around 4% to 6% in 2024.
Elsewhere, Haleon in June agreed to sell its nicotine replacement therapy business outside the U.S. to Dr. Reddy’s for 500 million pounds ($633 million). That sale followed a similar move in January when Haleon offloaded its ChapStick line of products to Suave Brands Company for $430 million.