DLA Piper advising PMI on its GBP1 billion competitive offer for Vectura Group plc

DLA Piper is advising Philip Morris International (PMI) on its recommended public offer for Vectura Group plc, a public limited company whose shares are listed on the Official List of the London Stock Exchange (Vela). PMI’s bid values Vectura at approximately GBP1 billion.

Vectura is a provider of innovative inhaled drug delivery solutions that enable partners to bring their medicines to patients. The acquisition of Vectura forms part of PMI’s expansion into products beyond tobacco and nicotine and is in line with its evolution into a smoke-free future as a broader healthcare and wellness company. In February 2021, PMI announced its ambition to generate at least USD1 billion in annual net revenues from Beyond Nicotine products by 2025 and identified respiratory drug delivery as a key focus.

Vectura is currently the subject of a competing offer announced on 26 May 2021 by a company indirectly controlled by funds managed by Carlyle Europe Partners V.

The DLA Piper cross-border, practice-integrated team is being led by corporate partners Jon Earle and Global Co-Chair of Corporate Bob Bishop, supported by senior associate Magdi Adab, with assistance from Stasia Kelly in the US, Mark Dwyer on finance, Sam Szlezinger on anti-trust, Lynda Finan on share options and Richard Taylor on IP and commercial contracts.

Jon Earle commented: “This transaction again showcases our public M&A capabilities. We were able to mobilize a tier one global cross-practice team with specific experience and know-how of the pharma sector in an exceptionally short space of time. This is our second major transaction for PMI this month, following on from its acquisition of Fertin Pharma A/S (led by Tom Heylen and Tim Baumgartner). We are proud to have supported PMI in their recent strategic transactions and we very much look forward to supporting them in the future.”

This is the second public bid of over a GBP1 billion that DLA Piper has acted on in the last week, following on from the USD6.5 billion acquisition by MKS Instruments of Atotech via a Jersey scheme of arrangement which was announced on 2 July 2021. The team on the MKS Instruments acquisition was led by Jon Earle, Tim Lake and Jonathan Klein.