Right on the heels of a similar move by Johnson & Johnson, GSK has agreed to sell the rest of its stake in the consumer healthcare business it spun out back in 2022.
Thursday, GSK revealed its intent to sell (PDF) its remaining 4.2% holding in Haleon, representing around 385 million shares. A day later, GSK said (PDF) the agreement raised proceeds of 1.248 billion pounds sterling ($1.58 billion).
The shares are being offered to institutional investors by Goldman Sachs and Bank of America Securities, the company said.
GSK completed the spinoff of its consumer health division—formerly a joint venture between the British pharma and Pfizer—in July 2022. At the time, GSK held a roughly 13% stake in Haleon, which is responsible for household brands like Advil, Sensodyne, Tums and Theraflu.
From the outset, GSK said it planned to sell down most of its stake in Haleon. The company sold share tranches twice last year and again in January.
All told, GSK has pawned off around 1.2 billion Haleon shares for about 3.9 billion pounds (nearly $5 billion), the company said in its Friday filing.
For its part, Pfizer—which came out of the 2022 demerger holding 32% of Haleon’s shares—said in March that it would whittle down its stake to 24% by selling 630 million shares in a public offering.
Large pharmas separating their consumer health ventures has become a notable industry trend in recent years, with companies such as J&J and Merck charting similar moves.
In J&J’s case, the drugmaker Monday said it planned to exit ownership of its spinoff—Kenvue—completely through a 182.33 million share “debt-for-equity” exchange. As the successor to J&J’s consumer health business, Kenvue markets popular products like Tylenol, Neutrogena, Listerine and Zyrtec.
Editor's note: This story has been updated with additional details from GSK.