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Business News/ Companies / Novartis sets $5 billion buyback as it seeks faster growth
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Novartis sets $5 billion buyback as it seeks faster growth

Novartis will develop new business segments in dermatology, heart failure, respiratory illnesses and cell therapy

The buyback is part of a 10 billion-swiss franc ($11 billion) plan announced in 2008, of which more than three-quarters still remain. Photo: BloombergPremium
The buyback is part of a 10 billion-swiss franc ($11 billion) plan announced in 2008, of which more than three-quarters still remain. Photo: Bloomberg

Munich: Novartis AG plans to buyback $5 billion in stock over two years and said it will expand in faster-growing areas of healthcare such as treatments for skin and heart diseases. The shares rose the most in a month.

The repurchases will begin immediately, the Basel, Switzerland-based company said in a statement before the company’s annual investor day on Friday. Novartis will develop new business segments in dermatology, heart failure, respiratory illnesses and cell therapy, it said.

The buyback is encouraging investors that Novartis is more focused on providing a return to shareholders now that former chairman Daniel Vasella has departed, Andrew Baum, a pharmaceuticals analyst with Citigroup Inc. in London, said in a note to clients. Baum said he hopes the company commits to providing further returns to shareholders as proceeds of any asset sales pump up the company’s cash holdings.

“We anticipate further increases in cash returns as the company divests non-core assets such as animal health over the next six to 12 months," Baum said.

The buyback is part of a 10 billion-swiss franc ($11 billion) plan announced in 2008, of which more than three-quarters still remain. Part of the mandate was used to mitigate the effect of the 2010 purchase of eye-care unit Alcon on Novartis shareholders, Eric Althoff, a spokesman for Novartis, said in a telephone interview.

‘Nice Gesture’

“The market likes a buyback," Michael Leuchten, an analyst at Barclays Plc in London, said in a telephone interview. “I’d say it’s a nice gesture, when you do the math they’re buying back 2.5% of their market capitalization over two years."

Novartis rose as much as 2.6% to 74.25 francs in Zurich, the steepest intraday increase since 22 October, and was up 1.4% at 12:16 pm local time. The stock has returned 32% this year, compared with 28% for the Bloomberg Europe Pharmaceutical Index.

Novartis said it wants to save 3-4% of total sales over the next two years by focusing on procurement, consolidating research sites and reviewing its manufacturing sites. The company had $56.7 billion in sales last year.

Pipeline Review

The drugmaker also said a review of its pipeline will lead to more approvals and higher sales by 2017. Novartis’s stable of cancer drugs and sales are set to grow annually for the next five years, despite the anticipated loss of exclusivity on its cancer drug Gleevec, the company said.

The Alcon unit is now set to grow at a mid- to high-single digit rate. The company said last month group sales would do better than previously expected. Europe’s biggest drugmaker by sales has begun a review of units such as its animal-health operation that lack global scale.

Novartis announced this month it would sell its diagnostics unit to Grifols SA for $1.68 billion, part of a strategic review of its market segments. The company now has three units with global scale, Jimenez said: pharmaceuticals, the eye-care business Alcon and the generics arm Sandoz. Novartis has said it wants its businesses to be among the industry leaders or it will consider divesting them.

The drugmaker has identified its animal-health business as a top candidate for a sale, people familiar with the matter said this month. Novartis is also considering selling its over-the- counter medicines unit and the vaccines operation, they said, although no final decision on those assets has been made.

Novartis is scheduled to start a presentation to investors in London at 1 pm local time on Friday. Bloomberg

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Published: 22 Nov 2013, 08:55 PM IST
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