The special glass manufacturer Schott produces 13 billion glass ampoules a year for the pharmaceutical industry.

Whereby ampoules are only imprecise.

At Schott, “pharmaceutical packaging” for medicines and vaccines includes ampoules, syringes made of glass and plastic, glass cartridges and vials.

Bernd Freytag

Business correspondent Rhein-Neckar-Saar based in Mainz.

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The fact that the Mainz-based company is one of the largest providers in the world in this business suddenly became a public issue when the corona pandemic broke out.

Suddenly, Schott was considered systemically important, and concerns grew that there would ultimately be insufficient ampoules for the vaccine.

In fact, the glass manufacturers gave the all-clear early on – they have not had any bottlenecks to date.

However, the attention has stayed and Schott now wants to use it to bring the pharmaceutical business to the stock exchange.

Analysts consider a value of up to 4 billion euros to be likely.

spin-off in winter

The new independent Schott Pharma is to be spun off in the fourth quarter.

Depending on the market environment, Schott could then consider going public next year, CEO Frank Heinricht and CFO Jens Schulte reported in an interview with the FAZ

According to Heinricht, the suspected corona effect is low from an economic point of view, accounting for just 3 percent of pharmaceutical sales.

The business is growing excellently even without this "special boom" and the demand is enormous.

Each of the thirty largest pharmaceutical companies in the world is a customer of Schott.

The Management Board justifies the stock exchange plans by opening up further financing options: for organic growth, acquisitions and for investments in order to be climate-neutral by 2030, as promised.

The parent company is financially well equipped, so there is no need.

With an IPO, however, Schott could better balance the risk within the group, says Heinricht.

"After all, we also have ideas for the other divisions."

With an annual turnover of 650 million euros most recently, the pharmaceutical business accounts for about a quarter of Schott's turnover.

The share of the result is likely to be higher, Schott has not yet published it.

The ampoules and syringes are produced in 16 plants around the world.

Of the almost 17,500 Schott employees, 4,800 are to be transferred to the newly founded Schott Pharma.

Schott does not want to comment on the assessment

The plans are being spurred on by the high valuations on the stock exchange.

Measured against the market capitalization of Italian competitor Stevanato, Schott Pharma could be worth up to 4 billion euros.

The Schott board does not want to comment on a possible assessment.

Not even information that three banks - Deutsche Bank, Bank of America and the French BNP Paribas - have already been commissioned to prepare for an IPO, so that the planning has already made very concrete progress.

In any case, it is clear that Schott will retain the majority stake in the subsidiary.

In order to rule out a loss of control, the Mainz-based company based itself on the legal form of Merck, Fresenius and Henkel, according to CFO Schulte.

Schott Pharma should therefore trade as AG & Co. KGaA.

This legal form is often chosen for listed family companies if the family wants to sell shares but retain control.

Schulte and Heinricht admit that Anglo-Saxon investors are strangers to this German peculiarity.

However, the growth prospects would more than compensate for such reservations.

In any case, Schott Pharma is said to be going public in Frankfurt.