Hikma Pharmaceuticals Plc (LON:HIK) dropped on Tuesday after a majority shareholder Boehringer Ingelheim offloaded its entire 16.4% stake.
The privately-owned German pharma sold 27.2mln shares at £2,300 each, raising £625mln, via an accelerated bookbuild.
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Hikma also agreed to buy back 12.8mln shares owned by the German peer at the same price. It will receive 2% of the total as a commitment fee.
The sales ends Boehringer Ingelheim direct interest in the FTSE 100 pharma giant.
The German group became a shareholder following Hikma’s acquisition of its generics business Roxane in 2016, completed at a price of 1,881p per Hikma share.
“In the intervening period, Hikma’s shares have rarely traded above this threshold level, until this year when the company’s role in delivering essential medicines during the pandemic combined with prospects for approval of a generic version of GSK’s Advair (obtained through the Roxane acquisition) drove the price back up to a peak of over 2,500p/share,” analysts at Peel Hunt commented.
“The timing of this placing therefore comes as no surprise, given that we did not see the stake as a long-term strategic holding for BI.”
Shares lost 6% to 2,331p on Tuesday afternoon.