As it di­gests Shire, Take­da plans to shed $10B in non-core as­sets to re­lieve debt bur­den

Af­ter con­sum­mat­ing his hefty $62 bil­lion deal to buy Shire, Take­da’s Christophe We­ber is deal­ing with the sticky is­sue of its bal­looned debt bur­den with di­vest­ments of around $10 bil­lion, the CEO of the biggest Japan­ese drug­mak­er told re­porters at the JP Mor­gan con­fer­ence on Tues­day.

The com­bined com­pa­ny, which is sad­dled with a re­port­ed $48 bil­lion in net debt af­ter the Shire takeover, is plan­ning to shed “non-core” as­sets, in­clud­ing busi­ness­es from the $13.7 bil­lion Ny­comed ac­qui­si­tion ex­e­cut­ed in 2011, ac­cord­ing to the Fi­nan­cial Times. Take­da $TAK bought the Swiss drug­mak­er for its smok­er’s lung drug and its OTC port­fo­lio in an at­tempt to ex­pand its foot­print in emerg­ing mar­kets, but as mar­ket con­di­tions wors­ened, the deal in­vit­ed a storm of crit­i­cism.

Unlock this article instantly by becoming a free subscriber.

You’ll get access to free articles each month, plus you can customize what newsletters get delivered to your inbox each week, including breaking news.

SIGN UP LOG IN BECOME A PREMIUM SUBSCRIBER