Regeneron Pharmaceuticals have announced plans to buy back about $5 billion of its shares from long-time partner Sanofi. The repurchasing is not meant to alter the two company's partnership.
Regeneron have started an underwritten public secondary offering of its common stock through which Sanofi intends to exit its investment in Regeneron shares. The shares being offered by Sanofi will be sold in an underwritten public offering. Sanofi currently owns approximately 23.2 million Regeneron shares and intends to sell approximately 12.8 million shares in the public offering. Sanofi also expects to grant the underwriters a 30-day option to purchase an additional 10% of the shares offered in the base offering.
Regeneron also announced that subject to and immediately following the close of the secondary offering, Regeneron agreed to repurchase approximately $5 billion of common stock directly from Sanofi. The purchase price to be paid by Regeneron will be equal to the net offering price per share after deducting any underwriters' discount and commission. Regeneron will fund the purchase with a combination of $3.5 billion of cash on hand and $1.5 billion of fully-committed bridge financing from Goldman Sachs Bank USA.
After the deal, Sanofi will still retain 400,000 shares of Regeneron. Regeneron will not receive any of the proceeds from the sale of shares in this offering.
Read the Regeneron release