Elder Pharma is frozen at 5% upper circuit today at Rs.311 though this was on very low volumes – of just 3788 compared to over 15,000 shares traded over the past two weeks average.

The stock had behaved the same way on 11^th June  and today also the reason is the same – selloff of its formulation unit. On that day, the company issued a denial stating that there was no proposal for the promoters to sell shares in the company. Despite that, today also grapevine has it that despite denials, things are cooking behind the scenes.

MNCs like Sanofi, Novartis and GSK Pharma are in the race to buy Elder’s formulation unit. Sanofi and GSK are understood to have put in non-binding bids while Novartis has signed a non disclosure agreement. PE funds are also reported to have joined the bidding process. Analysts are putting the valuation close to Rs.3000 crore.