India's Biocon raises $129 mln from Kotak to fund biosimilars deal
Feb 22 (Reuters) - India's Kotak Mahindra Group asset management arm said on Wednesday it will invest 10.70 billion rupees ($129 million) in Biocon Ltd to help it fund its acquisition of Viatris Inc's biosimilars business.
Biocon Biologics completed the $3.34-billion acquisition of U.S.-based Viatris's biosimilars business in late November.
At the time, the company said it paid $2 billion in cash to Viatris and issued convertible preference shares worth $1 billion to fund the deal.
Biocon, earlier this month, sold a nearly 10% stake in its unit and contract research firm Syngene International Ltd , raising 22.5 billion rupees to help fund the deal.
The investment from Kotak Investment Advisors Ltd (KIAL) is another move to help pay for the deal.
"This investment in Biocon comes at a pivotal point when Biocon is forward integrating its biosimilars business," Srini Sriniwasan, managing director at KIAL, said in a statement.
With this investment, the Kotak Special Situation Fund, an alternative investment fund managed by KIAL, has fully committed its $1 billion corpus, it said. ($1 = 82.8950 Indian rupees) (Reporting by Manvi Pant in Bengaluru; Editing by Savio D'Souza)
