Wockhardt rose 3.87% to Rs 491.40 at 9:50 IST on BSE after the company said its board has endorsed the decision of its Switzerland-based arm Wockhardt Bio AG to undertake a European listing.
The announcement was made after trading hours on Monday, 11 November 2013.
Meanwhile, the BSE Sensex was up 34.31 points, or 0.17%, to 20,525.27.
On BSE, 84,000 shares were traded in the counter compared with average volume of 2.37 lakh shares in the past one quarter.
The stock hit a high of Rs 498 and a low of Rs 483 so far during the day. The stock hit a record high of Rs 2,166.05 on 12 March 2013. The stock hit a 52-week low of Rs 344.15 on 8 August 2013.
The stock had underperformed the market over the past one month till 11 November 2013, falling 9.98% compared with the Sensex's 0.18% fall. The scrip had, however, outperformed the market in past one quarter, rising 24.39% as against Sensex's 9.06% rise.
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The mid-cap company has an equity capital of Rs 54.88 crore. Face value per share is Rs 5.
"In order to meet long term aspirations of the company and its group, the board of directors of Wockhardt have endorsed the decision of the board of Wockhardt Bio AG, Switzerland to undertake a European Listing with a relatively modest dilution of approximately 5% of the shareholding of Wockhardt Bio AG, Switzerland," Wockhardt said in a filing to BSE.
"Wockhardt is a global pharmaceutical and biotechnology major and has a business of over 75% outside India. The holding company, for undertaking this is primarily Wockhardt Bio AG, Switzerland," it added.
The plan to list its overseas holding company comes at a time Wockhardt has been facing regulatory scrutiny for some of its plants in India. In May, the US FDA had issued an import alert against the Waluj facility, which makes injectables and solid dosages.
Subsequently, the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency, the drug regulator in the UK, withdrew its GMP (good manufacturing practice) certificate issued to the company's manufacturing facility at Kadaiya in Gujarat. The regulator also withdrew the good manufacturing certification granted to the Chikalthana facility in Maharashtra.
The UK regulator had also imposed an import alert against Wockhardt's export-oriented plant at Waluj in Maharashtra and issued a precautionary recall for 16 medicines made by the company at the unit.
However, the UK MHRA has recently communicated to Wockhardt that it can manufacture and supply most of the products manufactured at the Kadaiya facility assessed to be critical to public health.
Wockhardt says that because of this development, the net impact on the annualised consolidated revenue is expected to be less than 1 million pounds, out of the total annual consolidated revenue of approximately 18 million pounds, from the facility.
On a consolidated basis, Wockhardt's net profit fell 69.5% to Rs 138.50 crore on 11.2% fall in net sales to Rs 1196.97 crore in Q2 September 2013 over Q2 September 2012.
Wockhardt is a high-technology intensive global pharmaceutical and biotechnology company with multi-disciplinary and innovative R&D programmes. It has three research centres globally and manufacturing facilities across India, USA, UK and Ireland. The company has a significant presence in USA, Europe and India.
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