(Bloomberg) — Royalty Pharma Plc, a buyer of biopharmaceutical royalties, and its shareholders upsized an initial public offering and sold the shares at the top of a marketed range to raise $2.18 billion in the second-largest U.S. listing of the year.
The New York-based company, founded by former Lazard Ltd. investment banker Pablo Legorreta, and its existing holders sold 77.68 million shares for $28 each Monday, according to a statement. The company had marketed 70 million shares for $25 to $28 each, according to filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
While technology-related IPOs made a comeback last week with ZoomInfo Technologies Inc. and Vroom Inc., biomedical companies have dominated the year’s offerings, with about $2.4 billion in listings slated to debut this week, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Royalty Pharma’s share sale is second in the U.S. this year only to the $2.25 billion listing including so-called greenshoe shares by the BlackRock Health Sciences Trust II, a closed-end fund, the data shows. If Royalty Pharma’s underwriters exercise their option to sell an additional 11.7 million shares, its listing would be the top U.S. IPO.
Since its inception in 1996, Royalty Pharma deployed $18 billion through the end of last year to acquire royalties from academic institutions, research hospitals and nonprofits, its filings show. Its portfolio includes treatments for rare diseases, oncology, neurology, HIV, cardiology and diabetes.
Biotech ‘Bond’
“They are looking at the entire universe of proven data which allows them to make well informed decisions around which drugs will be the most commercially successful, regardless of market cycle dynamics,” Jeremy Abelson, founder and portfolio manager at Irving Investors, said in an interview. “It’s like turning a biotech company into a bond.”
Other than Legorreta, its founder and chief executive officer, the company’s senior leadership consists of former investment bankers and research analysts.
Chris Hite, who headed Citigroup Inc.’s global health-care group for 12 years, joined Royalty Pharma in February as vice chairman. Terrance Coyne, its chief financial officer, was a biotechnology analyst at JPMorgan Chase & Co. Its head of research and investment, Jim Reddoch, previously worked at FBR Capital Markets and Bank of America Corp. Its 11-member executive and directors board is comprised of 10 men and one woman.
JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Citigroup and UBS Group AG led the offering. Royalty Pharma’s shares are expected to begin trading Tuesday on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the symbol RPRX.
