Novartis spends 3.1 bln euros to buy Roche shares
( 2001-05-07 16:20) (7)
The Swiss pharmaceutical group Novartis said on Monday that it had spent 4.8 billion Swiss francs (US$2.8 billion dollars) on buying bearer shares in Roche.
The block of shares bought by Novartis amounts to 20 percent of the bearer shares but carries only 3.7 percent of the votes.
The structure of shareholdings in Roche enables the two founding families, Roche and Hoffmann, to control the company with minority shareholdings.
Novartis said that it had paid 151 Swiss francs per share to buy the stock in competitor Roche from BZ Group, headed by Swiss financier Martin Ebner.
A spokesman for Novartis said that the group had bought 32 million shares.
Novartis president Daniel Vasella said in a statement that he had not had any talks with Roche over any forms of collaboration.
But Novartis hoped that in due course the two companies would be able to explore areas of cooperation.
The board of Roche has been under pressure for some months because Roche shares have underperformed, and Ebner criticised a poor rate of profitability at the last annual general meeting on April 3.
Ebner has led pressure for a change in the share structure to end the arrangement under which the founding families control the capital.
At the end of April, the newspaper Financial Times reported that Roche might cut 5,000-8,000 jobs equivalent to 8.0-12.0 percent of the total number of jobs in order to improve profitability.
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