Ipca Laboratories acquires 19.29% stake in Unichem through open offer

Ipca Laboratories on Thursday announced that it has acquired an additional 19.29 per cent stake in Unichem Laboratories through an open offer for Rs 597.5 crore, taking its shareholding to 52.67 per cent. Unichem Labs is now a subsidiary of Ipca. Ipca said that it paid Rs 440 per equity share in the open offer.

Ipca shares ended the day's trade at Rs 898 apiece, down 1.6 per cent on BSE.

This move follows Ipca Laboratories' previous acquisition of 33.38 per cent of Unichem Laboratories at a price of Rs 402.25 per equity share, amounting to Rs 945.35 crore that was completed in August. As part of this acquisition, Ipca Laboratories made an open offer to the public shareholders of Unichem Laboratories to acquire up to 26 per cent of the fully diluted outstanding equity share capital of Unichem at a price of Rs 440 per equity share, aggregating to Rs 805.44 crore.

As a result of this acquisition, several wholly-owned subsidiaries of Unichem Laboratories have also become subsidiaries of Ipca Laboratories—Niche Generics UK, Unichem SA Pty in South Africa, Unichem Farmaceutica Do Brasil Ltda in Brazil, Unichem Pharmaceuticals USA in the USA, Unichem Laboratories Ltd in Ireland, and Unichem (China) in China.

Unichem has a large basket of branded generics and APIs (active pharmaceutical ingredients), which it markets in several countries across the globe, with major markets being the United States of America and Europe. Unichem Laboratories was founded in 1944 by Amrut Mody and has six manufacturing plants in India. Ipca Laboratories manufactures and markets a wide range of pharmaceutical formulations, including APIs, branded generics and generics in several countries across the globe.