No­var­tis signs off on $20B deal to sell Roche stake, ac­quired 20 years ago, back to cross-town ri­val

For the past 20 years, No­var­tis and Roche were more than cross-town ri­vals reign­ing over tow­er­ing phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal dy­nas­ties. No­var­tis al­so holds a siz­able chunk of Roche’s shares — amount­ing to a near­ly one-third vot­ing stake.

Now, Roche is buy­ing that stake back for $20.7 bil­lion.

“Af­ter more than 20 years as a share­hold­er of Roche, we con­clud­ed that now is the right time to mon­e­tize our in­vest­ment,” No­var­tis CEO Vas Narasimhan said in a state­ment, adding that the cash will go to­ward pur­pos­es in line with cur­rent cap­i­tal al­lo­ca­tion.

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