July 4 (NBD) -- Shanghai Fosun Pharmaceutical (Group) Co., Ltd. ("Fosun Pharma", 600196.SH)  announced Tuesday that its controlling shareholder, Shanghai Fosun High Technology (Group) Company Limited ("Fosun High Tech"), acquired an aggregate number of 2,005,000 H Shares Tuesday via the Shanghai-Hong Kong Stock Connect trading system of the Shanghai Stock Exchange, with the average purchase price at HK$40.15 (5.1 U.S. dollars) per H Share. The transaction was worth approximately 68.23 million yuan (10.2 million U.S. dollars).

The aggregate number of H Shares purchased represents roughly 0.41 percent of the total number of the company's H Shares in issue and approximately 0.08 percent of the total issued shares of Fosun Pharma as at the date of the announcement.

The announcement also revealed Fosun High Tech's plan to future increase its shareholding in Fosun Pharma with no less than 100 million yuan (including the amount involved in the stake increase Tuesday) within the following 12 months via the trading system of the Shanghai Stock Exchange (including the Shanghai-Hong Kong Stock Connect). The stake increase by Fosun High Tech and parties acting in concert with it shall not exceed 2 percent of the total issued shares of Fosun Pharma, according to the announcement.

The recent shareholding increase plan came less than 2 months after the previous 12-month stake increase period ended in May 2018, during which Fosun High Tech bought 4,036,700 A Shares and 4,816,000 H Shares in Fosun Pharma for a cumulative sum of around 245 million yuan (36.8 million U.S. dollars).

In another deal, Wu Yifang, president and CEO of Fosun Pharma, acquired additional 443,900 A Shares and 312,000 H Shares in Fosun Pharma via the trading system of the Shanghai Stock Exchange (including the Shanghai-Hong Kong Stock Connect) for around 20.90 million yuan (3.1 million U.S. dollars) in January 2018.

Email: gaohan@nbd.com.cn