GSK's con­sumer health unit Ha­le­on off to a rough start

GSK may re­gret turn­ing down that of­fer from Unilever.

The phar­ma gi­ant’s con­sumer health unit Ha­le­on of­fi­cial­ly de­buted on the Lon­don Stock Ex­change on Mon­day — but it did so with a val­u­a­tion much low­er than Unilever’s takeover bid back in Jan­u­ary.

Ha­le­on $HLN start­ed trad­ing at 330 pence, but by mid-morn­ing the stock had fall­en to around 317 pence. That leaves the com­pa­ny’s mar­ket val­ue around £31 bil­lion (rough­ly $37 bil­lion), far low­er than Unilever’s £50 bil­lion ($68 bil­lion) of­fer.

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