Swiss drugmaker Novartis AG is to purchase back $5 billion of its shares, offering investors a sweetener as it holds off announcing any radical change to its structure.The Basel-based company is carrying out a broad review of operations following the departure of veteran chairman and one-time CEO Daniel Vasella and some analysts had seen scope for a bigger handout to the company's shareholders.The payout could also help ease concerns ahead of the loss of exclusivity from 2015 on its biggest seller, cancer drug Glivec, that could drag on mid-term growth.The company is also considering options for its non-core assets that lack the scale to become world leaders, but in a statement on Friday ahead of a series of presentations to investors and analysts in London it gave no indication of its plans for its smaller businesses.
Novartis AG provides healthcare solutions. The Company is a multinational group of companies specializing in the research, development, manufacturing and marketing of a range of healthcare products led by pharmaceuticals. Shares of NVS remained unchanged at $79.17. In the past year, the shares have traded as low as $60.23 and as high as $79.64. On average, 1391260 shares of NVS exchange hands on a given day and today's volume is recorded at 220.
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