Unilever is pursuing an audacious deal for Glaxo Smith Kline’s consumer arm after tabling a bid worth £50 billion, The Sunday Times can reveal.
The FTSE 100 maker of Dove soap and Marmite made an unsolicited approach for Glaxo’s portfolio of household brands, including Panadol painkillers and Sensodyne toothpaste, towards the end of last year.
Unilever made three cash-and-shares bids. The board of Glaxo and US drugs giant Pfizer, which owns a minority stake in the division, rejected the offers on the basis that they were too cheap. Glaxo said even the third “fundamentally” undervalued the business.
Unilever confirmed its interest in a statement after this newspaper broke the story online, saying it had approached Glaxo and Pfizer “about a potential acquisition of the
