- Today Nestlé S.A. (NSRGY) announced it will be paying $2 billion to gain full ownership of Aimmune Therapeutics Inc (NASDAQ: AIMT). These are the details.
Today Nestlé S.A. (NSRGY) announced it will be paying $2 billion to gain full ownership of Aimmune Therapeutics Inc (NASDAQ: AIMT), which is a peanut allergy treatment company. While the Nestle brand is synonymous with chocolate, the Swiss company has been rapidly expanding into the health sciences business.
Nestle launched the Nestle Health Science (NHS) division of the company in 2011. This arm of the company focuses on a new area of operations between food and pharmaceuticals. And Nestle said that this offer for at $2.6 billion. Prior to this deal, Nestle already had a 25.6% stake in the company.
“Aimmune has $261 million in cash and $134 million in debt. With our prior investment of $473 million in Aimmune, we’ll be making a cash payment of just under $2 billion,” said NHS head Greg Behar in an interview with Reuters.
There are up to 240 million people worldwide who suffer from food allergies with peanut allergy being the most common, according to Nestle’s research. And with Aimmune, NHS will have prevention, diagnostic, and medical treatment options available according to Behar.
Aimmune’s Palforzia peanut allergy treatment recently gained U.S. approval for children has an estimated sales potential of $1 billion. This deal is expected to add to organic growth in 2021 and to cash earnings by 2022 or 2023.
″(Palforzia) has 12 years of exclusivity, global rollout will follow and they have the technology platform for other food allergies in development,” explained Behar via CNBC.
This deal is at a 174% premium to Aimmune’s closing share price of $12.60 on Friday August 28, 2020.
