Chief executive officer Mark Thompson told The Globe and Mail that the firm was targeting U.S. institutional investors.Andrei Tchernov/The Globe and Mail
Concordia Healthcare Corp.'s public offering is almost in the bag, according to an investment banking source.
On Monday, the Oakville, Ont.-based pharma company said it intended to sell eight million new shares in a public offering to help pay for its recent $2.1-billion (U.S.) acquisition of Amdipharm Mercury Co. Ltd. The source said that the offering is now oversubscribed and should be priced by Friday.
Chief executive officer Mark Thompson told The Globe and Mail that the firm was targeting U.S. institutional investors. Concordia recruited the two most powerful names in Canadian and U.S. investment banking to sell its shares – RBC Dominion Securities and Goldman Sachs & Co.
When the Amdipharm Mercury deal was announced on Sept. 9, Concordia's shares lost almost 11 per cent of their value, partly because of the dilutive "overhang" this very stock sale presented. Once this offering is completed, that overhang will be gone.
Concordia is expected to pull in around $550-million from the share sale.
Niall McGee