Off the wire
Australian share market brought down at open on disappointing health stocks  • Motorbikes involved in 95 pct of road accidents in Laos  • Radical plan for Aussie CEOs to link salary with workers' well-being to be considered  • Turkey, France win singles titles at European Table Tennis Championships  • Aussie dollar slides against greenback at open  • Lao population growth slower in past ten years: census  • Brazilian soccer standings  • Brazilian soccer results  • Bushmeat hunting found threatening mammal populations, food security  • Xinhua world news summary at 0030 GMT, Oct.24  
You are here:   Home

Aussie govern't approves Chinese takeover of pharmaceutical company Vitaco

Xinhua, October 24, 2016 Adjust font size:

Australia's Foreign Investment Review Board (FIRB) on Monday approved a Chinese takeover of pharmaceutical giant Vitaco in a deal set to be worth more than 235 million U.S dollars.

Following the announcement of the planned sale in August this year, the Chinese bid lodged by Shanghai Pharma and Primavera Capital was approved by the government on Monday following approval from Chinese regulators earlier this year.

The last piece of the puzzle for the Chinese partnership is approval from Vitaco's shareholders who are due to vote on the takeover before the end of the year.

It's expected the deal, which will result in Shanghai Pharma and Primavera Capital paying 2.25 Australian dollars (1.71 U.S dollars) per share, will be approved by the shareholders. The current share price of the company is 2.07 U.S dollars (1.57 U.S dollars).

Vitaco is best known for the production of its Nutra-Life vitamin brand, as well as its Aussie Bodies sports nutrition range.

The FIRB approval comes following tough times for Chinese investment in Australia. The federal Turnbull government, which has previously stated that Australia was "open for business", had blocked Chinese-backed bids for Australia's largest pastoral landholding, S. Kidman & Co., as well as the nation's largest electricity distributor, Ausgrid.

S. Kidman & Co. bid was blocked by Treasurer Scott Morrison on "national interest grounds", while the Ausgrid bid was rejected due to national security concerns. Endit