Diversified healthcare company Abbott Laboratories (ABT) said Friday it has acquired control of Chile-based drugmaker CFR Pharmaceuticals S.A.
The company noted that the acquisition of CFR Pharma in a $2.9 billion deal will more than double its branded generics pharmaceutical presence in Latin America and expand its presence in fast-growing markets.
Abbott said that through the purchase of the controlling interest and tender offers, it has indirectly acquired more than 99 percent of CFR Pharma's ordinary shares for about $2.9 billion.
The Abbott Park, Illinois-based company had said in mid-May 2014 that it agreed to acquire CFR Pharma in a deal with a total purchase price of about $2.9 billion, as well as the assumption of net debt of around $430 million.
CFR Pharma participates in 15 Latin American markets and has a product portfolio well aligned with Abbott's current pharmaceutical therapeutic areas of focus in women's health, central nervous system, cardiovascular and respiratory diseases.
CFR Pharma currently markets over 1,000 products and has a track record of rapidly developing and bringing new products to market. The acquisition adds 7,000 employees, and R&D as well as manufacturing facilities in Chile, Colombia, Peru and Argentina.
Abbott noted Friday that the acquisition of CFR Pharma immediately establishes the company among the top ten pharmaceutical companies in Latin America.
According to IMS, the Latin American market is expected to reach $124 billion by 2018, with estimated annual growth rates of two to three times that of developed markets over the coming years.
According to Abbott, a total of 1.72 billion ordinary shares and 6.24 million American Depositary Shares or ADS, representing 624.32 million ordinary shares, were validly tendered in the tender offers and not subsequently withdrawn.
Abbott has accepted for payment all ordinary shares and ADS that were tendered and not subsequently withdrawn.
After giving effect to the purchase today of Kalo Pharma Internacional S.L.U., which indirectly owns 72 percent of the shares of CFR, and the purchase of the ordinary shares as well as ADS tendered in the tender offers, Abbott will indirectly own about 99.6 percent of the outstanding shares of CFR. The U.S. and Chilean tender offers expired on Tuesday, September 23, 2014.
Further, Abbott noted that the transaction will not impact its ongoing earnings-per-share guidance for 2014. However, the company expects the transaction to be accretive to its ongoing earnings per share in 2015 and increase thereafter, before one-time transaction-related items which will be provided at a later date.
ABT is trading at $41.98, down $0.01 or 0.05 percent on a volume of 222,759 shares.
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