UK: Reckitt Benckiser would look at buying Pfizer consumer unit | Progresiv
Reckitt Benckiser Group Plc would consider acquiring Pfizer Inc.’s consumer-health unit were it to come up for sale in the wake of the Viagra maker’s merger with Allergan Plc. 
Buying the unit would add the Advil, ChapStick and Centrum brands to a fast-growing portfolio of consumer-health products such as Nurofen painkillers and Durex condoms, Chief Executive Officer Rakesh Kapoor said in an interview in London. The 160 billion dollars Allergan deal may lead to Pfizer splitting up the enlarged organization, and the New York-based company has said it will decide on a potential separation by the end of 2018.
“If the Pfizer consumer business was to come up for any number of reasons and if it goes through all these processes, would RB be interested to look at it? Yes,” Kapoor said. “I’d be very interested in looking at it.”
Adding Pfizer’s consumer-health business - which generates annual sales of about 3.5 billion dollars - would further Kapoor’s plan to help consolidate a fragmented industry, where the leading companies control less than 30 percent of market share. It would also be Kapoor’s first big transaction since the 482 million dollars deal to license some of Bristol-Myers Squibb Co.’s Latin American brands in February 2013. (www.esmmagazine.com)
