Apotex workers walk through the company’s grounds in Toronto in April, 2021. The company has priced the IPO deal at the top end of its marketing range, a source says.Nathan Denette/The Canadian Press
Apotex Health Corp., Canada’s largest drug manufacturer, is increasing the size of its initial public offering to $1.3-billion on the back of strong investor demand and will price its shares at $24 each on the Toronto Stock Exchange.
The drug manufacturer set out to raise $1-billion and initially hoped to price its shares between $20 and $24 apiece. Apotex, which is currently owned by a private equity company, is now raising 30 per cent more than planned, and has priced the deal at the top end of its marketing range, according to someone familiar with the transaction.
The Globe and Mail is not naming the source because they are not authorized to speak publicly about the deal.
Apotex did not immediately return a request for comment, but the company is expected to publicly announce the deal size and the pricing after stock markets close this afternoon.
The larger deal size is a positive sign for Canada’s capital markets, which have struggled to attracts IPOs in recent years. A flurry of technology companies went public during the pandemic, but many saw their share prices drop sharply after listing – and a number have since been sold to private equity firms at depressed valuations.
While Apotex garnered heavy demand from institutional investors, the deal is being finalized during a selloff in American stock markets. By mid-day Tuesday the Nasdaq Composite Index was down 2.4 per cent, after falling 4.2 per cent on Friday. If markets continue to drop, it could put pressure on Apotex’s newly listed shares.
The Apotex IPO will be the largest in Canada since Definity Financial Corp., an insurer, went public in a $1.4-billion share offering in 2021.
Toronto-based Apotex has more than 6,500 global employees churning out 25 billion doses of medicine each year and selling in 70 countries.
The company was founded in 1974 by the late Barry Sherman and made its name by producing generic drugs that had lost their patents. Mr. Sherman was famously litigious, fighting court battles over drug patents with name-brand pharmaceutical companies and generic rivals.
About one-fifth of all generic drugs taken in Canada are manufactured by Apotex, the company said in deal filings. The drug maker’s generic version of the blockbuster drug Ozempic was the first to widely hit pharmacy shelves in May and Apotex already has tentative approval for the product from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, although the main patent for Ozempic doesn’t expire in the U.S. until 2032.
Mr. Sherman and his wife, Honey, were killed at their Toronto home in December, 2017, and the case has never been solved. After Mr. Sherman’s death, Apotex was sold to New York-based SK Capital Partners LP, a private equity fund focused on life sciences.
SK is selling some of its stake through the IPO but will remain a major owner of the drug manufacturer.
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Editor’s note: An earlier version of this story misstated that Apotex had hoped to price its shares between $22 and $24 apiece. It had hoped to price it between $20 and $24 apiece.