The third largest Russian pharmaceutical manufacturer Veropharm may delist if minority shareholders offer up to 25% of the company's shares for redemption, Kommersant wrote on Thursday with reference to the company's main owner Roman Avdeev (No. 69 in the ranking of the richest businessmen in Russia according to Forbes , net worth: $1.3 billion).

“If we have a stake of more than 76%, we may think about delisting Veropharm,” said Avdeev, who now owns 52.01% of Veropharm.

At the end of summer, Avdeev’s structure, GardenHills, acquired a controlling stake in the pharmaceutical manufacturer from the 36.6 pharmacy chain for 5 billion rubles. According to the law, Garden Hills offered Veropharm minority shareholders to buy back their shares (4.8 million in total) at a price of 961.27 rubles per share. The total amount of funds for the redemption may reach 4.6 billion rubles. Shareholders must decide on participation in the offer by January 17, 2014. “If initially I thought that the ransom volume would be about 0%, now it seems to me that it will be 20-25%,” Avdeev said.

As a source in one of the companies that owns a small stake in Veropharm confirmed to the publication, the possibility of distribution was discussed at a recent meeting of minority shareholders with the management of the pharmaceutical manufacturer. But, according to the source, then there was talk of conducting a dealership if the free float as a result of the mandatory buyout was less than 15%.

According to Bloomberg, the key minority shareholders of Veropharm are currently Franklin Resources (10.26%), East Capital (5.17%. Veropharm was founded in 1997. It owns three factories in Belgorod, Voronezh and Pokrov and produces mainly prescription generics, and is also the largest manufacturer and supplier of patches in Russia and Ukraine.

Avdeev did not rule out delisting Veropharm