Benzinga | May 7, 2021 04:06PM EDT

Amphastar Pharma Reports Buyback Of 26% Of Its Equity In Its ANP Subsidiary; ANP Will Spin Off Its Chinese Subsidiary, Nanjing Hanxin Pharma Technology Co.

Amphastar Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMPH) announced the restructuring of its Chinese subsidiaries, primarily Amphastar Nanjing Pharmaceuticals Inc. ("ANP"). As part of the restructuring, Amphastar will buyback 26% of ANP's equity currently held by third parties. In addition, ANP will spin-off its Chinese subsidiary, Nanjing Hanxin Pharmaceutical Technology Co., Ltd. and Hanxin's subsidiaries (collectively, "Hanxin"). The restructuring is subject to regulatory approval, and the total cash payment by Amphastar for this restructuring will be approximately $29 million.

To effect the spin-out of Hanxin, some of the ANP investors will concurrently invest a portion of their ANP sale proceeds to purchase a majority ownership stake in Hanxin, with ANP retaining an approximately 20% minority ownership stake in Hanxin. ANP will continue to focus on development and manufacturing of Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients ("API") for Amphastar's products and pipeline products, as well as manufacturing finished pharmaceutical products for sale outside the U.S. market.

The restructuring will increase Amphastar's ownership in a critical source of APIs for Amphastar's current and, more importantly, pipeline products. ANP has developed and filed 17 Drug Master Files (DMFs) for API and critical excipients with the FDA and is currently developing more DMFs. These DMFs including several insulin products and other diabetes treatments which are key elements of Amphastar's pipeline products. This restructuring represents Amphastar's strategic commitment to manufacturing finished pharmaceutical products and APIs for global sale and distribution.

On the restructuring, Amphastar's CEO, Dr. Jack Zhang, stated: "We believe that the restructuring of ANP is the most effective way for us to continue expanding globally while maintaining control of our important API manufacturing capabilities and eliminating expenses for areas unrelated to Amphastar's pipeline products. We expect the transaction to be accretive to Amphastar's EPS by approximately $0.03 per share in 2021 and $0.12 per share in 2022."

Amphastar's executive officers, certain directors and immediate family members of certain executive officers and directors will be participating in the transaction as a result of their 2018 investment in ANP. The Company engaged a financial advisor to conduct an independent third party valuation to determine the transaction price. The independent disinterested members of the Company's Board of Directors engaged a separate independent financial services firm to evaluate the transaction and render an opinion as to the fairness of the transaction price as part of their evaluation and approved these transactions.

Closing is expected to occur in the third quarter of 2021, subject to receipt of approvals by applicable regulatory authorities in China.