The giant deal would elevate Unilever to the level of Estee Laurel and L’Oreal as a major player in the wellness, health and cosmetics industry
British grocery giant Unilever is trying to buy Glaxosmithkline, one of Britain’s largest pharmaceutical companies, a healthcare consumer product unit.
Glaxo said on Saturday it received three takeover bids from Unilever for its consumer product unit.
The value of the latest bid was around £ 50 billion, or around € 60 billion. It would have paid £ 41.7 billion in cash and £ 8.3 billion in shares in Unilever.
Glaxo had rejected the bids.
The company plans to delist its consumer products into a separate listed company.
Former CEO of Tesco, one of Britain’s largest grocery stores, has been hired to manage the new company Dave Lewis.
News agency According to Bloomberg, among others, the activist investor company Elliott Management has put pressure on Glaxo and the CEO Emma Walmsley to be more favorable to the sale of parts of the company and to streamline its business.
Glaxo’s share price has underperformed the general level of pharmaceutical companies last year.
Also CEO of Unilever Alan Jope has been under pressure due to the company’s recent weak stock market loss.
The company has said that Glaxo’s consumer products fit well strategically into Unilever’s product range.
According to Bloomberg sources, Unilever is still considering a new offer.
Unilever has about 400 well-known brands in the grocery store.
Ben & Jerry ice creams are Unilever products.
Its well-known brands in Finland include Ben & Jerry, Comfort, Domestos, Dove, Hellman’s, Magnum, Omo and Rexona.
Glaxon of the health care consumer products, its dental care products are the most successful.
Glaxo is known in Finland for example for Sensodyne toothpaste.
Painkillers sold to consumers, such as Panadol, would also be part of the new listed company.
According to the news agency Reuters, Glaxo rejected the offer, considering it “fundamentally undervalued”.
On the market if realized, Unilever would rise to the size of Estee Lauder and L’Oreal as a major player in the growing wellness and beauty industry and cosmetics, Reuters estimates.
If realized, it would be one of the biggest acquisitions in a while.
U.S. pharmaceutical giant Pfizer owns a minority stake in the Glaxo consumer product unit in question.
That too has knocked out offers so far, Reuters says.
Unilever was formerly a Dutch-English company, but the company moved its headquarters about a year ago to only one country: Britain.
One reason was that the company was thus considered to be able to execute various corporate reorganizations more agilely.
The Times was the first to report on Unilever’s offer on Saturday.
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