Natco Pharma proposes to buy back 1.64% stake for Rs 210 crore

The company proposes to buy back shares from the shareholders through the open market and the promoters (Representative image)

Hyderabad-headquartered generic drug maker Natco Pharma has on March 8 announced its board's decision to buyback 30 lakh shares from the open market, accounting for a 1.64 percent stake for Rs 210 crore.

In a communique to stock exchanges, the company said it will buyback fully paid-up equity shares of face value of Rs 2 each at a price not exceeding Rs 700 a share, a maximum buyback price, against the current market price of Rs 568 on March 8.

The stock on March 8 gained 0.33 percent or Rs 1.85 to close at Rs 568 a share after touching the day’s high price of Rs 580. The stock had reported a 52-week high price of Rs 920 a share and a low of Rs 502.

The company proposes to buy back shares from the shareholders through the open market and the promoters, promoter group and persons in control of the company are excluded from the buyback.

Natco Pharma said the indicative maximum number of equity shares to be bought back would be 30 lakh shares at the maximum buyback price and for the maximum buyback size. The actual number of equity shares bought back could exceed the indicative maximum buyback shares if the equity shares are bought back at a price below the maximum buyback price, said the company.

Further, Natco Pharma added that the buyback shall not exceed the maximum buyback size, which represents 5.13 percent and 5.04 percent of the aggregate of the total paid-up capital and free reserves of the company based on the audited standalone financial statements and audited consolidated financial statements as at March 31, 2022 respectively.

The board has constituted the buyback committee consisting of its managing director VC Nannapaneni, chief executive officer Rajeev Nannapaneni and executive vice president PSRK Prasad.

The promoters and promoter group currently hold 8.91 crore shares, amounting to 48.82 percent stake and the public hold 9.34 crore shares translating into 51.18 percent stake.

Post buyback, the holding of the public will come down to 50.37 percent, while the promoters’ holding will increase to 49.63 percent, said the company.