UCB announces issue of new shares

UCB this week announced that it has issued 1,767,184 new UCB shares to be granted to shareholders in Schwarz Pharma who tendered their shares in that company during the second acceptance period of UCB’s public offer for that company’s shares.

This acceptance period was announced on September 25th 2006 and closed on December 28th 2006. These new shares were created by a capital increase that was approved unanimously at the company’s general shareholder’s meeting in October.

Admission of the listing of these new shares on Eurolist by Euronext Burssels was approved by Euronext on January 8th 2007, with trading under the same codes as previously existing UCB shared commencing at the same time.

“The new capital of UCB will amount to 549,838,856 euros [368.28 million pounds], represented by 183,279,952 UCB shares,” the company noted.

“In the context of its tender offer on the shares of Schwarz Pharma, UCB increased in two tranches its capital by 25.58 per cent,” it added.

UCB reports that, based on the prices at the close of trading last Friday, the company’s market capitalisation would be equal to 9.4 billion euros.

Last week, UCB announced the “successful takeover” of Schwarz Pharma, as the acceptance level of its tender offer reached 87.62 per cent.