CONSUMER spin-off Haleon made an inauspicious debut on the London Stock Exchange in what was billed as Europe's biggest listing for more than a decade.
GlaxoSmithKline’s demerger of Haleon, which owns brands like Sensodyne, saw the latter start trading at 330p, valuing the business at more than £30 billion.
By midday, shares in the company were around two per cent lower at 320p.
GSK announced plans to demerge the consumer business last year. In January, GSK rebuffed a £50bn takeover offer from consumer goods rival Unilever, saying it valued the business too low.
Haleon, which has more than 22,000 workers, made £1.6bn in 2021.
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Brian McNamara, Haleon chief executive, said the flotation was a “significant milestone”.
Susannah Streeter, senior investment and markets analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, said: “There may be a volatile period of trading ahead for the company particularly due to the cost inflation which has whipped up across the consumer goods industry.
"But given its successful products, such as Sensodyne toothpaste and Advil and Voltaren pain killers, are household names, the brand pulling power of this new consumer big beast should help it hang onto customers, who may trade down other products in shopping baskets instead.”
Danni Hewson, financial analyst at AJ Bell, suggested the well-known brands may not be enough to entice buyers.
She said: “Shoppers are increasingly going for supermarket own-label products as the cost-of-living crisis hits, with plenty of cheaper options for toothpaste and headache tablets than those sold by Haleon.
"That raises the risk of Haleon struggling to deliver meaningful earnings growth in the near-term, which is hardly the best start to life as a standalone business."
Shares in Haleon closed at 308.35p. GSK shares closed down 19.16% at 1,389.8p.
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