AstraZeneca ponders a China pharma spinoff to protect itself from geopolitical fallout — FT

As se­nior gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials in the US war­i­ly look to sta­bi­lize rocky re­la­tions with Chi­na, one glob­al phar­ma gi­ant has been con­sid­er­ing a cor­po­rate re­struc­tur­ing that could help it side­step the tense con­fronta­tion be­tween the two coun­tries that has de­vel­oped in the last few years.

The Fi­nan­cial Times is re­port­ing that As­traZeneca has been con­sid­er­ing the plus­es and mi­nus­es of spin­ning off its Chi­na as­sets in­to a sep­a­rate­ly list­ed com­pa­ny in ei­ther Hong Kong or Shang­hai. Cit­ing sev­er­al bankers fa­mil­iar with the deal, the FT high­lights the pre­lim­i­nary na­ture of the con­ver­sa­tions, not­ing that a host of multi­na­tion­als with a stake in Chi­na have been do­ing ex­act­ly the same thing. (The FT owns a ma­jor­i­ty stake in End­points News, though the news or­ga­ni­za­tions are in­de­pen­dent.)

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