GSK To Sell Entire Stake In Hindustan Unilever

(RTTNews) - Healthcare company GlaxoSmithKline plc (GSK, GSK.L) announced Thursday that it has agreed to sell its entire 5.7 percent stake in Hindustan Unilever Limited or HUL, the Indian unit of Unilever plc (UN, ULVR.L, UL).

GSK, through its units GlaxoSmithKline Pte Limited and Horlicks Limited, agreed to the sale of 133.77 million ordinary shares in HUL at a volume-weighted average price of approximately 1,905 Indian rupees per share, raising gross proceeds of approximately 254.8 billion rupees.

Following settlement of the sale, GSK will no longer hold any HUL shares.

On April 1, GSK had announced the completion of its divestment of Horlicks and other Consumer Healthcare nutrition products in India to Unilever, including the merger of GSK's Indian listed entity, GlaxoSmithKline Consumer Healthcare Limited, and HUL. Through this merger, GSK had acquired a 5.7 percent stake in HUL.

In 2018, when GSK originally announced the divestment of Horlicks, the expected gross proceeds from the overall transaction was around 3.1 billion pounds and net proceeds of around 2.4 billion pounds.

With the appreciation of HUL's share price since then, GSK now expects gross proceeds from the divestment to be 3.4 billion pounds and net proceeds from the divestment to be 2.9 billion pounds.