Almirall registers prospectus for offering

Leading Spanish drugmaker Almirall has registered its prospectus for the previously-announced public offering of its shares and listing on the Spanish Stock Exchange (Marketletter February 19). It indicates June 20 as the anticipated date for the start of the listing.

The number of shares included in the offering represents around 27% of group's total share capital, with a potential for increasing this up to 30%. Rothschild and ABN AMRO are advising the firm.

Almirall also posted financial results, showing that sales for 2006 were 757.9 million euros ($1.02 billion), up 3% on the previous year, and profits increased 25% to 147.2 million euros. Around 70% of turnover was generated by the firm's 10 top-selling drugs, four of which originate from in-house R&D. 66% of revenues came from the domestic market. For the first quarter of this year, Almirall saw sales increase 2.4% to 213.6 million euros, while earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization grew 7.3% to 62.0 million euros.