April 25, 2024

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[THE INVESTOR] Samsung BioLogics said on Nov. 6 it is close to wrapping up an asset transfer deal with US-based Biogen to sell its shares in their joint venture Samsung Bioepis.

Samsung BioLogics will transfer 9,226,068 shares of Samsung Bioepis to Biogen on Nov. 7 for about 759.5 billion won (US$676.13 million), including the face value and interest. 

The deal comes six years after the two firms founded the biosimilar-focused biopharmaceutical company in 2012 as an 85:15 joint venture with Biogen’s call option to raise its stake up to 49 percent.

After the deal, Samsung BioLogics and Biogen will each own equal amount of shares in the JV and will have rights to appoint the same number of board directors.

“Through the collaboration with Biogen, we were able to achieve remarkable results in the biosimilar business,” Samsung BioLogics CEO Kim Tae-han said in a statement.

The call option had emerged as a key issue in the Korean government’s regulatory probe into Samsung BioLogics’s alleged accounting violations, as its changed its bookkeeping method based on the assumption that Biogen would exercise the option.

The change led the company to make a surprising turnaround after consecutive losses.

In May, the regulator tentatively concluded that Samsung BioLogics had committed fraud when it assessed the value of Samsung Bioepis in late 2015, shortly before the company went public in 2016. A final ruling is likely to come on Nov. 14.

By Park Han-na (hnpark@heraldcorp.com)