Britain's Reckitt Benckiser Plc agreed on Friday to buy Boots Group's non-prescription drugs business for a higher-than-expected 1.926 billion pounds ($3.4 billion) in cash, bringing its Lemsip and Disprin cold remedies together with Boot's Nurofen painkiller.
British health and beauty group Boots, which must sell the business before it can merge with Alliance Unichem Plc, said it intended to return around 1.43 billion pounds, or 200 pence a share, to shareholders via a special dividend.
Initial concerns that Reckitt had overpaid were soon swept away as its well-respected management team outlined big cost savingsr.
Investors also cheered the high price won by Boots for its business known as Boots Healthcare International (BHI) lifting its shares 0.9 percent to 627-1/2p.
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