Zentiva - ready to leave BVB

Zentiva Grup bought almost 320,000 shares of Zentiva SA, in the public offering held between September 25 and October 8, reaching a 96.02% ownership of the medicine manufacturer from Bucharest, according to a report by BRD-Groupe Societe Generale, the intermediary operation, published on the website of our capital market operator.

Since Zentiva Grup owns over 95% of Zentiva SA, it can delist the company from the Bucharest Stock Exchange. The Czechs had launched the offer for a 4.02% stake in the drug manufacturer, a stake equivalent to the shares not owned by them, at a unit price of 4.1 lei. If the subscriptions had been at least 90% of the entire offer, Zentiva Grup could have requested the sale of the shares of those who did not subscribe during the operation, at the price of the offer, i.e. 4.1 lei. As this did not happen, the price at which the eventual squeeze-out operation will be carried out (procedure by which the majority buys the shares of the minorities, without the need for their consent, in order to take complete control over the company) will be the one resulting from an expertise, carried out by an appraiser, as it appears from the provisions of the capital market law.

The group managed to exceed the 95% threshold in July 2019, following a capital increase. Previously, Zentiva Grup had made a public mandatory takeover offer, but the subscriptions were very low, because among the remaining shareholders there are many who were appropriated through the Mass Privatization Program, the so-called "couponaries", at the former Sicomed (currently Zentiva). Some of them are no longer there, others have not done the succession or do not know that they have shares.

For the first half of the year, Zentiva SA reported a net turnover of 551 million lei, 22% above that of the first six months of 2023, while the net profit amounted to 143 million lei, almost double compared to of 72 million lei, from the first semester of last year.

The stock market valuation of the medicine manufacturer from Bucharest amounts to 2.8 billion lei.