November 26, 2024

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Rendering of Samsung Biologics’ fourth plant in Songdo, Incheon (Samsung Biologics)

Contract manufacturing giant Samsung Biologics has raised 3.2 trillion won ($2.6 billion) through issuing new shares, allowing the company to secure capital needed for the buyout of Samsung Bioepis’ stake and construction of its fourth plant, officials said Monday.

According to the firm’s regulatory filing, some 2 trillion won out of the 3.2 trillion won will be used for buying out Biogen’s stake in Samsung Bioepis and cover expenses of building its fourth manufacturing plant.

In January, Samsung Biologics signed a share purchase agreement with Biogen to buy out the US biotech’s 10,341,852 shares in Samsung Bioepis for $2.3 billion. The CMO giant’s fourth plant is expected to start partial operation from October. It will be the single-largest factory with a capacity of 256,000 liters once completed next year.

The company said the rest of the funding will be spent on purchasing additional land in Songdo, Incheon, to set up a second bio campus, building a multimodal plant and expanding production capacities of the three existing plants as well as for maintenance and repair.

Covering an area of 350,000 square meters -- 30 percent bigger than the existing bio campus, the second bio campus will solidify Samsung Biologics’ top position with the world’s largest manufacturing capacity, it added.

At the annual shareholders meeting held last month, Samsung Biologics CEO John Rim said the company will become a global bio company based on the three pillars of contract development and manufacturing, biosimilar and new drugs with the buyout of Samsung Bioepis’ stake.

For the paid-in capital increase, Samsung Biologics issued 5,009,000 new shares at the price of 639,000 won apiece. With Samsung Electronics and Samsung C&T making equity investments through the subscription of over 3.2 million shares, the overall subscription rate for the new shares recorded 100.25 percent, the group’s biotech subsidiary said.

By Kan Hyeong-woo (hwkan@heraldcorp.com)