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India’s Cipla plans $512mn takeover of Cipla Medpro SA
February 28, 2013, 9:55 am

[AP]

Cipla plan to delist the South African company [AP]

Indian pharmaceutical company Cipla Ltd have improved their offer to acquire South African drugmaker Cipla Medpro South Africa Ltd by 17 per cent.

Cipla plan to spend about $512 million (10 rand a share), to take over Cipla Medpro before delisting the South African company.

“With a 100 per cent buy-out plan, Cipla will have good operational synergies in the African market,” Siddhant Khandekar, an analyst at ICICI Direct in Mumbai told Reuters.

The analyst also said it would be difficult to predict if the payback would occur quickly.

In November last year year, Cipla offered to buy 51 per cent of Cipla Medpro at 8.55 rand a share.

Shortly after Cipla’s offer the South African company won a $158 million (1.4 billion rand) government drug contract to supply HIV/AIDs drugs to local hospitals – analysts speculated that the Indian drugs maker would have to increase its bid.

Reports in early February suggested that the deal might have been put on hold by the Indian firm.

Shares in Cipla were up 0.8 per cent at 367.40 rupees in India this morning.

Source: Agencies