Regeneron Pharmaceuticals announced on Monday that it would buy back $5 billion worth of its shares from Sanofi, a French multinational pharmaceutical company. The announcement goes in line with the commencement of Regeneron’s underwritten public secondary offering of its common stock in which Sanofi “intends to exit its investment.”
Sanofi owns 23.2 million Regeneron shares and plans to sell 12.8 million shares in the public offering. The company expects to grant underwriters a 30-day option to purchase an additional 10% of the shares offered in the base offering, says the press release.
Regeneron’s $5 billion worth of repurchase of its common stock from Sanofi will be funded by a $3.5 billion of cash and $1.5 billion of financing.
“Following the offering and Regeneron’s $5 billion share repurchase, and assuming that the underwriters exercise their option to purchase additional shares in full, Sanofi will have disposed of all of its shares, other than 400,000 shares it intends to retain.”
The offering and repurchase by Renegeron will not have any form of impact on the ongoing collaboration between the two drugmakers, which was dated back to 2003.
Paul Hudson, the Chief Executive Officer of Sanofi, notes that the offering aims to execute the company’s strategy to drive “innovation and growth.”
“Sanofi remains committed to continuing our collaboration with Regeneron, which remains an integral part of our overall strategy,” Hudson adds.
The offering will co-occur in the United States and internationally through underwriters led by BofA Securities and Goldman Sachs as joint book-running managers.
