GÖTTINGEN/PARIS (dpa-AFX) - The pharmaceutical and laboratory equipment supplier Sartorius has sold its own preference shares on the market with a volume of 200 million euros. Following the expensive takeover of the cell and gene therapy specialist Polyplus by its subsidiary Sartorius Stedim last year, the DAX-listed company wants to reduce its debt. In addition, the Gottingen-based company participated disproportionately in a billion-euro capital increase of the subsidiary Sartorius Stedim Biotech, which reduces the company's stake in the French company. Sartorius shares rose shortly after the start of trading on Wednesday, while those of its subsidiary fell.

Sartorius Stedim Biotech had placed more than 5.1 million new shares with institutional investors in an accelerated offering, raising around 1.2 billion euros, as the company announced. Sartorius subscribed for a third of the new shares: a good 1.7 million shares for 400 million euros.

The French company intends to use at least two thirds of the net proceeds from the capital increase to repay a loan received from the parent company and a financial subsidiary belonging to Sartorius. Any remaining portion will be used for general corporate purposes. Sartorius' shareholding will fall from 73.6 to 71.5 percent.

Almost at the same time as the French, Sartorius also placed 613,497 preferred shares from its own holdings with institutional investors overnight. With the placement price of 326 euros per share, the Gottingen-based company had to accept a discount of almost four percent on the previous day's closing price of 339.50 euros. By the middle of the week, the share price had fallen by 1.5 percent to 334.30 euros. Analyst James Vane-Tempest from the US bank Jefferies spoke of a "clarifying event with regard to debt".

"The net proceeds from the placement of treasury shares should accelerate the deleveraging of the Sartorius Group beyond a strong operating cash flow and strengthen the company's overall strategic flexibility," the Group announced in its own press release published separately from the subsidiary.

Sartorius CEO Joachim Kreuzburg had recently not ruled out a capital measure at the presentation of the preliminary 2023 results in order to significantly reduce the massive increase in debt resulting from the purchase of Polyplus. The acquisition of the French company for 2.4 billion euros was the largest in the history of Sartorius to date./tav/men/mis