Published by maria gbaf
Posted on November 5, 2021
1 min readLast updated: January 28, 2026
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Roche's controlling family is exempt from making an offer to other shareholders after buying back Novartis's stake, as per Swiss takeover board.
ZURICH (Reuters) – Roche said on Friday that its controlling family will be exempt from having to make an offer to other shareholders after the drugmaker’s $20.7 billion deal to buy back Novartis’s nearly one third voting stake.
The pool of family shareholders, who previously owned 45.01% of the voting rights in Roche, were given the exemption by the Swiss takeover board, the company said. The decision was confirmed on the takeover board’s website.
In Switzerland a mandatory offer obligation is normally triggered whenever a shareholder or group of shareholders directly or indirectly acquires equity securities in a listed Swiss company that exceed 33.33% of the voting rights.
Roche said on Thursday, when the Novartis deal was announced, that it will use debt to finance what it called a “disentanglement of two competitors” and plans to reduce its capital by cancelling the repurchased shares to regain full strategic flexibility.
(Reporting by John Revill; Editing by Susan Fenton)
The main topic is Roche's exemption from making a shareholder offer after buying back Novartis's stake.
The Swiss takeover board granted an exemption due to Roche's family shareholder structure.
Roche plans to use debt to finance the buyback of Novartis's stake.
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