Haleon buys back £230m in shares after Pfizer offloads £2.43bn stake

(Sharecast News) - Pharma giant Pfizer has offloaded a £2.43bn stake in Haleon, which in turn said it would buy back £230m of the shares. Haleon, maker of Sensodyne toothpaste, said it had bought the shares at 308p each. The off-market purchase includes 30.1 million shares worth around £114.6m which will be cancelled and represent the remainder of the £500mallocated to share buybacks in 2024.

The rest of the shares will be held as treasury shares for the purposes of satisfying Haleon's obligations under its existing employee share plans in 2025. Haleon said Pfizer's stake was expected to fall to 15% from 22.6%.

Haleon was created as a joint venture with GSK before being listed in July 2022 as a consumer healthcare company.

Reporting by Frank Prenesti for Sharecast.com