Anglo-Swedish drugmaker AstraZeneca is drafting a plan to spin off its China business, and listing a separate unit in Hong Kong is being viewed as an option, the Financial Times reported on Sunday, but sources said a separation might not ultimately take place, as one said listing the entity in Shanghai was also possible.
The company – which is China’s biggest drugmaker and accounted for 13% of AstraZeneca‘s total sales – would seek to be a patriotic company in China that “loves the Communist Party”, its China president said in May and spinning it off could protect AstraZeneca from tensions between China and other global powers, while the company retained control of the business, the report said, which added that the idea has been around for years but was sidelined recently by a global biotech downturn.
AstraZeneca said it did not comment on “rumours or speculations around future strategy or M&A”, Reuters reported.
Read the full report: The FT with Reuters.
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