Pfizer sells €3bn share in major Dungarvan pharma company
Drugmaker Pfizer has sold its entire stake in Haleon for about £2.5 billion. Stock photo.
A major employer in Dungarvan has seen Pfizer, its single largest shareholder, sell its entire stake in the company for nearly €3 billion.
Haleon, which employs nearly 1,000 staff at its plant in Dungarvan, bought back 44 million shares from its former parent company for a sum in the region of €200 million with a further 618 million shares being acquired by institutional investors.
Haleon is the world’s largest standalone consumer healthcare firm and the sale value of 7.3 per cent of the company’s shares amounts to €2.95 billion (£2.5bn) of the company’s total market value of more than €42bn.
Haleon is best known for manufacturing the painkiller, Panadol, and toothpaste Sensodyne. The company also produces brands such as Voltaren, Advil painkillers and Centrum vitamins.
The company was created by a merger between Pfizer and GSK’s consumer healthcare businesses in 2019. The sale of Pfizer’s more than 650 million Haleon shares means both of the original founding companies have now sold their entire stakes in the spinoff - GSK sold its entire stake in Haleon back in May, 2024.
Following Pfizer's disposal, BlackRock Investment Management (UK) Ltd, a unit of BlackRock, will become Haleon's largest shareholder with a more than 5 per cent stake, according to data compiled by LSEG.
Towards the end of last year, a "small number of roles” were lost at the company’s plant in Dungarvan, Co Waterford, which were said to have been part of “organisational changes".
Haleon is reportedly focused on reducing debt after being spun off from GSK in 2022, according to Reuters.
