Companies and Brands

Nestle Adds Peanut Allergy Treatment to Its Portfolio

Paul Ausick

Published: August 31, 2020 8:13 am

The world’s largest consumer products company, Nestlé S.A., has agreed to acquire Aimmune Therapeutics Inc. (NASDAQ: AIMT) in an all-cash deal valued at $2.6 billion. Nestlé will pay $34.50 per share for the outstanding shares of Aimmune, a premium of 174% to Friday’s closing price.

Aimmune is the developer of Palforzia, the world’s first approved food allergy treatment. Palforzia helps reduce the allergic reactions of children and teens to peanuts by exposing them to small doses of the drug over time. The drug was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in February.

Nestlé already owns a 26% stake in Aimmune through its Nestlé Health Science division. Excluding that stake, the deal is valued at around $2 billion. Industry analysts expect Palforzia revenue to exceed $1 billion in 2025, according to a Bloomberg News report.

Another Nestlé subsidiary will initiate a cash tender offer for Aimmune shares. At the conclusion of the offer, Nestlé will acquire the remainder of the shares not tendered and “converted into the right to receive the same cash price per share as paid in the tender offer.” The transaction is expected to close in the fourth quarter.

Nestlé reported sales of more than $93 billion in 2019, about 40% higher than the world’s second-largest (by sales) consumer products company, Procter & Gamble Co. (NYSE: PG). Some of the company’s thousands of brands are Gerber baby foods; Perrier and San Pellegrino bottled water; KitKat and Toll House candy and chocolate brands; and a variety of coffee brands.

The Switzerland-based Nestlé paid Starbucks Corp. (NASDAQ: SBUX) $7.2 billion last year for the right to market Starbucks products for Nestlé’s Nespresso coffee capsule system.

In July, Nestlé won a hearing from the U.S. Supreme Court seeking to reverse a lower court ruling that a Nestlé subsidiary (and privately held food processing giant Cargill) knew about and took advantage of child slavery at cocoa farms in Ivory Coast, the world’s largest producer of cocoa.

Nestlé stock traded up about 0.6% on the Swiss stock exchange at around $121.29, in a 52-week range of $92.38 to $125.43.

Aimmune’s shares traded up about 170% in Monday’s premarket session at $34.00, in a 52-week range of $10.09 to $37.00. Its consensus 12-month price target had been $35.18. At our last look at the company’s stock in March, Aimmune traded at about double its closing price from last Friday.

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