ADIA ‘in talks to join Sanofi bid consortium’

Alamy/Volodymyr Kalyniuk

• Bloomberg reports approach by PAI
• Deal would be worth $16.7bn
• Competition from New York bidder

Abu Dhabi’s trillion-dollar investment fund is in talks to join a consortium to buy the French drugmaker Sanofi’s consumer health division, according to a report by Bloomberg.

Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA) and the Singapore sovereign wealth fund GIC have both been contacted by the French buyout firm PAI Partners with a view to joining forces and making a bid for the division, Bloomberg reported.

A deal would value the business in the region of €15 billion ($16.7 billion).

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In October last year, Sanofi announced plans to split its consumer healthcare business in the fourth quarter of 2024 at the earliest.

At the time it said “the most likely path” would be the creation of a publicly listed company headquartered in France.

Should the consortium go ahead, it would be competing against a rival bid from the New York-based buyout firm Clayton Dubilier & Rice, Bloomberg said. Any bidders face a September deadline.

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ADIA is the world’s fourth-largest sovereign wealth fund with $993 billion of assets under management, according to the Sovereign Wealth Fund Institute.

Joining the Sanofi consortium would align with a growing trend from ADIA to execute more deals through partnership agreements.

It is already part of a consortium including CVC Capital Partners which agreed a deal to buy the British stock trading platform Hargreaves Lansdown for £5.4 billion earlier this month.

GIC and ADIA are also backing CVC in its bid for Deutsche Bahn’s logistics unit, DB Schenker, which could command a valuation of more than €15 billion.

ADIA, established in 1976, invests on behalf of the government of Abu Dhabi. The fund is chaired by Sheikh Tahnoun bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the brother of the UAE president, who is also deputy ruler of Abu Dhabi and the country’s national security adviser.

In the first six months of this year, a total of around $52 billion was spent by Gulf sovereign wealth funds, with ADIA and Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund dominating, according to Global SWF.