The company requested market regulator Securities Exchange Board of India to examine the matter in its entirety and the role of some media houses and other stakeholders.
Sun Pharma, India’s largest drugmaker on January 18 told stock exchanges it hasn’t received the alleged 172‐page whistleblower complaint and therefore, is not privy to the contents of the document.
The company requested market regulator Securities Exchange Board of India (SEBI) to examine the matter in its entirety and the role of some media houses and other stakeholders.
“There is a great asymmetry in the information circulating between analysts, investors and media leading to intense speculation. The availability of information contained in the whistleblower documents to a set of selective investors does put other investors including retail investors in a disadvantageous position,” Sun Pharma said in a statement.
“It is evident from the fact that shareholders value has been drastically eroded within a short span of time due to the unsubstantiated complaint or allegation against the company and mala fide campaign launched by certain media houses,” the statement alleged.
Sun Pharma’s stock took a beating on Friday falling 12 percent after a media report alleged fresh whistleblower compliant made to market regulator SEBI.
This too has been filed by the same whistleblower who had filed a complaint in September last year, according to the report.
The whistleblower report alleged large transactions between Aditya Medisales (AML) and Suraksha Realty, controlled by Sun Pharma’s co-promoter, Sudhir Valia out of the money generated from the publicly-listed company.
Sun Pharma’s domestic formulation business is entirely routed through a promoter-owned entity called Aditya Medisales, a super stockiest that became a related party of the company during FY18 after a consolidation of several other investment companies.
Aditya Medisales does not enjoy any significant profitability, and on revenues of Rs 8,000 crore in FY18 it had an EBITDA margin of 1.7 percent and net margin of 0.4 percent in FY18.
In an analyst call, the company had said the arrangement was made for an efficient tax structure and it is ready to relook at the deal but might consider changing the structure of the deal.
Sun Pharma also said the voluntary recall of certain batches of Vecuronium Bromide Injection in the US market will not have any material impact on financials, as the product has a negligible contribution to company’s consolidated revenues.
Shares of Sun Pharma were trading at Rs 390.40, down 10.23 percent on BSE at 3.24 pm, while the benchmark Sensex gained 0.05 percent to 36,393.94 points.
