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News :: Miscellaneous |
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Pharmacia completes spin-off of Monsanto |
Current rating: 0 |
by Associated Press/Sehvilla
Email: smann (nospam) stu.parkland.cc.il.us (unverified!) |
13 Aug 2002
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Today Pharmacia Corp. completed its spinoff of its remaining shares of Monsanto Company, in preparation to merge with Pfizer, the world's largest pharmaceutical corporation. Monsanto will now be 100 percent publicly traded. |
(forwarded from Yahoo! Business News)
Pharmacia Spins Off Monsanto Stake
Tue Aug 13, 4:43 PM ET
By LINDA A. JOHNSON, AP Business Writer
TRENTON, N.J. (AP) - Drug maker Pharmacia Corp. has spun off its controlling stake in Monsanto Co. to clear the way for Pfizer Inc., the world's biggest drug company, to acquire No. 9 Pharmacia by year's end.
Pharmacia on Tuesday gave its own stockholders the 220 million Monsanto shares it owned as a special, tax-free dividend. The shares represented an 84 percent stake in Monsanto.
The spinoff of Monsanto, a Saint Louis-based agricultural products business, comes barely two years after Pharmacia bought Monsanto. Both operations will continue without layoffs or other major changes, said Mark Krajnak, Pharmacia's media relations manager.
Monsanto is best known for its Roundup line of herbicides, crop weed control products and DeKalb and Asgrow seed brands.
Since the April 3, 2000, acquisition, the Peapack-based company has changed its name from Pharmacia & Upjohn to Pharmacia Corp. and spent more than $2.1 billion in restructuring charges to integrate parts of Monsanto into its operation.
The acquisition included Monsanto's G.D. Searle drug business, which gave Pharmacia its biggest-selling drug, Celebrex. The popular drug for arthritis and other joint inflammation posted sales of $3.1 billion last year, more than 20 percent of Pharmacia's 2001 revenues of $13.8 billion.
In October of 2000, Pharmacia completed an initial public stock offering, selling 35 million shares, or 16 percent, of Monsanto, which then began trading on the New York Stock Exchange ( news - web sites).
Pharmacia retained the other 84 percent of Monsanto, saying it planned to spin it off by the end of 2002, but Pharmacia on July 15 agreed to be acquired by Pfizer by year's end. Under that $53 billion stock deal, Pharmacia shareholders will get 1.4 shares of Pfizer for each Pharmacia share they own.
"The spinoff of Monsanto was a condition of Pfizer acquiring Pharmacia," Krajnak said. "It doesn't change the acquisition timeline at all, but ... we were able to move up the spinoff from late in the year until now, so we did."
Besides Celebrex, Pharmacia makes the contraceptives Depo-Provera and Lunelle, the growth hormone Genotropin, Rogaine for baldness, and several products aimed at the growing elderly market, including Xalatan for glaucoma, Detrol for overactive bladder and Camptosar for colorectal cancer.
Pharmacia now has about 43,000 employees worldwide, including about 2,200 in New Jersey; Monsanto has a total of 16,000 workers.
Monsanto shares fell 70 cents to $15.81 and Pharmacia shares fell 96 cents to $44.95 in trading on the New York Stock Exchange.
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On the Net: http://www.pharmacia.com
http://www.monsanto.com |