Take­da gets a $2.2B deal for its OTC unit as debt-re­lief dri­ve nears its end

In a big step to­ward its $10 bil­lion di­vest­ment goal, Take­da struck a deal to sell its Japan­ese con­sumer health­care busi­ness, known for over-the-counter prod­ucts, to US pri­vate eq­ui­ty firm Black­stone Group.

Take­da Con­sumer Health­care Com­pa­ny was priced at around ¥242 bil­lion ($2.28 bil­lion), though that val­ue will be ad­just­ed to ac­count for net debt and work­ing cap­i­tal, ac­cord­ing to Take­da.

The deal — ex­pect­ed to close by the end of March 2021 —is part of Take­da’s plan to shed $10 bil­lion in non-core as­sets to bal­ance out debt in­curred in the com­pa­ny’s $62 bil­lion Shire ac­qui­si­tion. The buy­out made Take­da a top 10 in­ter­na­tion­al drug com­pa­ny, but al­so sad­dled it with a re­port­ed $48 bil­lion in net debt. Fol­low­ing the ac­qui­si­tion, Take­da shift­ed its fo­cus to the fol­low­ing five ar­eas: gas­troen­terol­o­gy (GI), rare dis­eases, plas­ma-de­rived ther­a­pies, on­col­o­gy and neu­ro­science.

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