Healthcare firm Alliance Pharma has backed a sweetened £362 million takeover offer by its largest shareholder and activist investor DBay Advisors.
The deal – the sixth by DBay – will see shareholders get 64.75p a share, up from the original offer worth 62.5p a share, or £349.7 million.
Alliance Pharma’s board has recommended the higher offer, which also has the support of Alliance’s second biggest shareholder, Slater Investments, which has a stake of around 13.5%.
Investors will vote on the deal on Thursday, with the firms hoping to complete the takeover in the first half of the year.
The deal represents a 46% premium to the 44p closing share price of Alliance shares on January 9, before DBay’s first approach.
Shares in Alliance have fallen sharply in the past few years, having been worth more than £1.20 each in April 2022.
DBay Advisors, an investment firm based in the Isle of Man, already holds a 27.9% stake in the pharma company.
Alliance Pharma, which sells over-the-counter drugs in more than 100 countries, is listed on London’s Aim index.
The firm – based in Chippenham, Wiltshire – suffered a tumultuous year in 2024, with former chief executive Peter Butterfield stepping down after controversy and several delays to its annual results.
The company has increased its debt pile in recent years by making a slew of small acquisitions, and in February 2022 received a £7.9 million fine from competition regulators for alleged anti-competitive behaviour, which was later overturned.
The company was forced to suspend its dividend in September 2023 and the Competition and Markets Authority tried to disqualify Mr Butterfield as a director.
He was eventually replaced by Nick Sedgwick, who joined from being UK and Ireland regional director of consumer health at Reckitt Benckiser.
DBay Advisors said in January that it was “supportive” of Alliance Pharma’s leadership team but it needed to “accelerate investment”.
