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Activist hedge fund Parvus Asset Administration is constructing a stake in Ozempic-maker Novo Nordisk because the drugmaker hunts for a brand new chief govt following a share value hunch.
The London-based hedge fund, which has beforehand focused airline Ryanair and playing group Flutter Leisure, desires to affect the appointment of Novo Nordisk’s new chief, in line with folks with information of the main points.
Shares in Novo Nordisk have fallen 50 per cent over the previous 12 months. A mixture of disappointing trial outcomes for its new weight problems drug and decrease than anticipated gross sales figures led buyers to conclude that it was shedding floor to its US rival Eli Lilly within the weight-loss market.
Final month, it introduced that chief govt Lars Fruergaard Jørgensen can be stepping down sooner than deliberate, though he stays in publish till a successor is discovered. Though it’s now not Europe’s largest listed firm, Novo Nordisk nonetheless has a market capitalisation of $334bn.
Parvus didn’t disclose the dimensions of its stake in Novo Nordisk and, below Danish securities guidelines, doesn’t have to if it owns lower than 5 per cent of the corporate. The activist has whole shareholdings of £5.2bn, in line with Bloomberg knowledge.
Novo Nordisk, Parvus and the Novo Nordisk Basis, the drugmaker’s largest shareholder, declined to remark.
The Novo Nordisk Basis holds nearly all of voting rights within the firm, making it tougher for an activist to affect its plans. The inspiration’s chair, Lars Rebien Sørensen, who beforehand ran the drugmaker, has joined the board as an observer, as a part of the method of discovering a successor.
Novo Nordisk minimize its gross sales and revenue forecasts final month, blaming the speedy growth of reproduction weight problems medicine within the US. These cheaper options had been quickly allowed when there have been shortages however have minimize into the market share of branded variations.
Activist buyers have beforehand utilized stress to firms even the place their shareholdings have been small: US activist buyers Starboard Worth and Irenic Capital, for instance, waged a multiyear marketing campaign towards Wall Avenue Journal dad or mum firm Information Corp regardless of the Murdoch household having precedence shareholdings.
Parvus was co-founded in 2004 by former Merrill Lynch fund supervisor Edoardo Mercadante. It made a reputation for itself by efficiently opposing UK bookmaker William Hill’s proposed merger with rival playing group Amaya and UK safety group G4S’s £5.2bn takeover bid for Danish amenities administration firm ISS.
Alongside Flutter and Ryanair, it has additionally beforehand constructed positions in Italian financial institution UniCredit, French resort group Accor and Ipsen, one other Danish drugmaker.
