U.S.-based investment management firms Blackstone, Inc. (NYSE: BX) and Carlyle Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: CG) are in talks to jointly bid for Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis AG’s (NYSE: NVS) generics business Sandoz at around $25 billion, Bloomberg reported citing people familiar with the matter.
Novartis has also received bids from other firms.
Vas Narasimhan, the CEO of Novartis, said, “We don’t have a bias towards any of these options at the moment. We are doing the work to finish the carve-out financials to provide that to relevant parties and we’ll see what proposals come back.”
Meanwhile, Novartis expects operating income and sales to rise at the rate of mid-single-digit in 2022.
It anticipates Sandoz’s sales to total around $2.5 billion and operating income to decline in the low-to-mid-single-digit percentage range.
About Novartis
Basel-based Novartis develops, manufactures and sells prescription and generic drugs as well as active pharmaceutical ingredients. Its drug portfolio includes clozapine, diclofenac, carbamazepine, valsartan, imatinib mesylate, cyclosporine, letrozole, methylphenidate, terbinafine and deferasirox, among others.
Novartis stock was down 2.8% in Wednesday’s pre-market trading session.
Analyst Ratings
Overall, the stock has a Hold consensus rating based on 3 Holds. As none of the analysts covering the stock have provided the price target, there is no Novartis stock price prediction.
Hedge Fund Trading Activity
TipRanks’ Hedge Fund Trading Activity tool shows that confidence in NVS is currently Very Positive, as the cumulative change in holdings across all 12 hedge funds that were active in the last quarter was an increase of 4.9 million shares.
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