Recordati gets €10.9bn takeover bid from private equity firm
Recordati has received an unsolicited takeover offer from private equity group CVC Capital Partners that, if completed, would delist the pharma group from the Italian stock exchange.
The €52-per-share offer values Recordati at around €10.9 billion (around $12.5 billion). In a statement, the company said the "non-binding indication of interest" from CVC is subject to various conditions, including "due diligence, the securing of financial resources needed to fund the transaction, and the identification of partners with whom to pursue the initiative."
The private equity firm already owns 46.8% of Milan-headquartered Recordati, according to Italian newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore, which first reported the offer was coming. Jersey, UK-domiciled CVC acquired its stake in Recordati in 2018 – then giving it a majority 51.8% position – for around €3 billion.
CVC has not yet commented on its offer to take control of Recordati, which has emerged after the investment group was reported by Bloomberg to be thinking of divesting its stake in the group just a couple of years ago.
Last month, Recordati's 2025 financial results revealed a healthy 8.3% increase in annual revenues to €2.62 billion, driven by Cushing's syndrome therapy Isturisa (osilodrostat), and net profit up 14.5% to €651 million. It is forecasting 2026 revenues of €2.73 to €2.8 billion.
The company has been growing its revenues at an impressive pace in recent years, fuelled by a push into the rare diseases category to complement its longstanding position in specialty/primary care therapies.
It says it is committed to further expansion through bolt-on licensing and/or M&A deals – something that could be easier as a privately-held group due to greater confidentiality, faster decision-making, and less public shareholder pressure.
In the last couple of years alone, Recordati bought cold agglutinin disease (CAD) therapy Enjaymo (sutimlimab) from Sanofi for more than $1 billion, licensed European rights to Amarin's heart therapy Vazkepa (icosapent ethyl), and formed an alliance with Moderna to develop mRNA-3927, a treatment for propionic acidaemia.
CVC's interest in taking control follows a move by Recordati to double its peak sales forecast for Isturisa from around €600 million to €1.2 billion. Sales grew 22.5% to €394 million last year.
The cortisol synthesis inhibitor was first launched in 2020 for Cushing's disease, a subtype of Cushing's syndrome, but has seen its growth accelerate since its label was expanded last year to include all forms of endogenous Cushing's syndrome in patients for whom surgery is not an option or has not been curative.
