Name the four pharmaceutical stocks

Four pharmaceutical stocks that are traditionally highly defensive have turned to the offensive with strong stock price increases - all of which are having stories related to selling capital to strategic partners and/or divesting state capital.

Four pharmaceutical stocks that are traditionally highly defensive have turned to the offensive with strong stock price increases - all of which are having stories related to selling capital to strategic partners and/or divesting state capital.

With a stable growth fundamental and steady dividends, the addition of strong catalysts has helped these pharmaceutical stocks outperform the market.

This morning's trading session (February 11), pharmaceutical stocks were actively traded, IMP stock ( Imexpharm Pharmaceutical Joint Stock Company) increased to the ceiling price of 49,650 VND/share; DMC ( Domesco Medical Import-Export Joint Stock Company) also increased to the maximum price of 86,600 VND/ share in purple, DBD (Binh Dinh Pharmaceutical - Medical Equipment Joint Stock Company - BIDIPHAR) increased by nearly 3%, DHT ( Ha Tay Pharmaceutical Joint Stock Company) increased slightly by 1%...

In the most recent year (up to February 8, 2025), IMP shares recorded an increase of 67.54%, with an average liquidity of 101,000 units/session; DBD increased by nearly 39%, with liquidity of more than 220,000 units/session, surpassing the last quarter of 2024 with 28%; DHT recorded an increase of up to 231.5% with an average liquidity of more than 100,000 units/session; DMC impressed with 2 consecutive ceilings (January 22-23, 2025) before the information about SCIC's share auction, also recorded a better increase of 45% in the most recent year, with liquidity of just over 3,000 units/session.

Pharmaceutical stocks are inherently known to the market as defensive stocks due to their concentrated characteristics, stable growth through the ups and downs of the economy , and regular - attractive annual dividends. Looking back at history, this group of stocks usually only makes waves when there is a story of State capital divestment welcoming foreign shareholders to participate. Foreign shareholders, depending on the enterprise and each stage, are usually financial shareholders participating, then reselling to strategic shareholders who are foreign pharmaceutical corporations. With each change in major shareholders, the stock price of this industry often "jumps sharply".

In general, for the whole industry, it can be seen that in the previous period associated with the equitization and divestment of state-owned enterprises, the pharmaceutical industry witnessed major M&A deals between Domesco and Abbott, Hau Giang Pharmaceutical and Taisho, Imexpharm and SK Group, or the change in the major shareholder structure of Traphaco... More recently, there was the deal between Ha Tay Pharmaceutical and ASKA Pharmaceutical.

In 2024, although no more major M&A deals will take place, foreign investors will continue to show positive expectations for the prospects of Vietnam's pharmaceutical industry by continuing to invest and increase their ownership ratio in pharmaceutical companies.

Investors continue to wait for the new wave that investors expect to come from IMP with the information that SK Group wants to transfer shares; DBD is making progress in selling capital to strategic investors that has been approved by the 2nd General Meeting of Shareholders; DMC with information on divesting State capital; DHT with the progress of gradually increasing ownership of major Japanese shareholders.

Given the impressive growth of IMP, due to the characteristics of the stock group that is less noticed by individual investors due to low price fluctuations, it is noted in investment consulting rooms, buying recommendations based on technical analysis along with good fundamental information (such as business growth results) about IMP have increased quite well in 2024 to present.

With DHT, major shareholder ASKA Pharmaceutical Co Ltd. is similar, increasing ownership from 24.9% to 32.56% of capital (December 2023) and continuously buying in 2024 to increase ownership to 38.2%. In the first phase of the year, it bought an additional 1.41 million shares, increasing ownership to 39.94%. Currently, this Japanese shareholder is continuing to register to buy an additional 90,000 DHT shares in February.

Many investors in the market and investment organizations are “winning big” with this investment because they calculated to buy the right wave of “increasing foreign shareholder ownership”, also known as the “takeover game”. However, because the price increased sharply, buying more DHT is not recommended by many consultants.

Similar developments at DBD show that major shareholder KWE Beteilgungen AG has continuously increased its ownership ratio from 6.99% (March 2024) to 10.01% (December 2024). Currently, DBD is continuously contacting domestic and foreign investor groups to find strategic investors to buy 23.3 million privately issued shares.

According to many investment advisory groups, these stocks have the opportunity to increase in price when the deals progress to more important milestones.

IMP - previously with many "misconceptions" about the game at IMP was completed when it was revealed that SK Group was the controlling shareholder with a total ownership of 65% of capital, this stock surprised with a strong increase in 2024 and information from Bloomberg about the possibility of selling this number of shares to another partner.

IMP is known as a reputable pharmaceutical manufacturing enterprise, with strengths in antibiotics (accounting for a large proportion of the product portfolio), and has the most factories meeting GMP-EU standards on the stock exchange. Currently, IMP has 4 factory clusters with 7 factories and production workshops. Of which, factories IMP 2,3,4 meet EU-GMP standards. Latest information, IMP has put line 3 at factory IMP4 into operation since the end of October. The company has received many pre-orders for factory IMP4 and the expected utilization rate of factory IMP4 will reach about 80% - 90% in the fourth quarter.

Imexpharm currently has a charter capital of VND1,540 billion. The shareholder structure includes SK and related parties (KBA, Binh Minh Kim) owning about 64.8% of capital. Vietnam Pharmaceutical Corporation holds 22% of shares in IMP.

In the fourth quarter of 2024, IMP recorded a record profit of VND 121 billion, an increase of 67%, contributing to the highest profit in history in 2024, VND 321 billion.

With DBD, DBD has a very attractive product portfolio, including antibiotics, cancer treatment drugs and dialysis solutions, which are the 3 main treatment groups of DBD. In particular, DBD is the only listed pharmaceutical company with a relatively large competitive advantage in the cancer drug production group, especially compared to domestic competitors, DBD has a diverse product with about 20 different active ingredients, while the remaining companies in drug groups 3-5 only have 1-4 active ingredients for cancer treatment.

DBD has inaugurated an injectable and tablet cancer drug factory by the end of 2023 with WHO-GMP certification and is currently applying for EU-GMP certification for these two lines.

Upgrading the production line to EU-GMP standards, investing in building 2 new factories and the Government's policies to ease bidding regulations at the hospital channel have strengthened DBD's long-term prospects based on the expectation of entering the generic drug bidding market in groups 1 and 2 - the 2 groups with the highest revenue in the hospital bidding drug segment and currently no Vietnamese enterprise producing cancer drugs has entered this group.

In addition, DBD has signed a deal with Crearene AG, a company based in Frauenfeld, Switzerland, to develop creatine treatment solutions for dialysis patients. Securities analysts assess that this is a completely new product, DBD will have many advantages because it receives exclusive rights to the product.

In terms of business results, DBD continued to record another year of growth with revenue of VND 1,727 billion and after-tax profit of more than VND 275 billion. This result further strengthens the belief of many investors that businesses with good business foundations and competitive advantages will be "paid" attractively.

Meanwhile, DMC attracted attention with the news earlier this year that SCIC would divest nearly 35% of its capital, with a starting price of more than VND 1,531 billion, equivalent to VND 127,046/share. This price is much higher than the current market price of DMC on the stock exchange (around VND 72,000/share).

Many opinions say that the only bright candidate is DMC's current major shareholder, Abbott, who is a major shareholder and also the controlling shareholder of more than 51% of the capital. This deal not only reshapes DMC's ownership structure but can also create great momentum for DMC shares in the near future.

If successful, this will be the largest share auction in the past 2 years since Petrolimex successfully auctioned 40% of PGBank's capital in early April 2023.

However, it should be noted that in 2019, SCIC failed to sell capital of this pharmaceutical company due to the lack of investors participating. At that time, the starting price for each share was VND 119,600/unit, 64% higher than the market price of DMC shares at the same time.

Source: https://baodautu.vn/chuyen-the-tan-cong-goi-ten-tu-ma-co-phieu-nganh-duoc-d244752.html