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Bidvest, PIC oust Adcock chairperson

Johanensburg - The top two shareholders of Adcock Ingram [JSE:AIP] have ousted its chairperson after a long-running battle for control of its board.

Bidvest and state-run pension fund Public Investment Corporation (PIC) are now expected to push through changes to turn around South Africa's second biggest drug company.

They said Adcock could fast-track its turnaround with leadership changes and want Bidvest chief executive Brian Joffe and two other executives they have nominated to be appointed as directors.

Joffe has an established track record of buying poorly performing companies and turning them around by improving cash flow, capital allocation and returns.

Khotso Mokhele's resignation late on Tuesday comes weeks after Bidvest became Adcock's biggest shareholder and torpedoed a foreign takeover of the company.

Adcock, 55.5%-owned by Bidvest and PIC, has been hit by slow sales, currency swings and over-reliance on the highly regulated South African market.

Bidvest built up its stake from about 4% to more than a third in about two months with a R4bn cash offer direct to shareholders.

Shares in Adcock rose 2.2% to R57.9 by 10:22 GMT, outpacing a 0.4% gain for the JSE All-share index.

Mokhele clashed with Joffe last year after he led a board decision to snub Bidvest's offer for 60% stake in Adcock in favour of Chile's CFR bid for the whole company.

Mokhele, who has been at helm for seven years, had argued that Bidvest's offer was opportunistic and lacked strategic logic while CFR would broaden Adcock's geographic footprint and fill the gaps in its product offering.

CFR has dropped its R12.8bn bid because it was clear that it would not secure shareholder approval because both the PIC and Bidvest were against it.

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