Fleury acquires URP after two years without acquisitions
Valor Econômico - 11/23/2007
Resonances, tomographies, X-rays and ultrasounds. Diagnostic Imaging forms the segment that, on the average, has the best profit margin and the fastest rhythm of growth for Fleury. In order to strengthen the division, the company announced yesterday the acquisition of the URP from São Paulo. The purchase includes two service units in the capital city and another one under construction. The value has not been informed. The URP may end 2007 with gross revenues of R$ 30 million (US$ 17.2 million). Fleury, on its turn, without the impact of the acquisition, will end the year with an income of nearly R$ 600 million (US$ 344.83 million), 15% superior to 2006's. "For 2008 we project R$ 750 million (US$ 431 million), with the URP included", says the company's CEO Mauro Figueiredo. Fleury is the second largest medical diagnostic group of the country, after Diagnósticos da América (Dasa), which is listed at Bovespa. In the past years, both have carried out several acquisitions. Fleury acquired 15 laboratories between 2002 and 2005, by means of the NKB subsidiary. The years of 2006 and 2007 were used to organize the network and remodel the structure of the group. In order to make a great part of the acquisitions it carried out feasible, Fleury used stocks from NKB to pay the owners of the companies. The model has created a complicated corporate structure of management, with many minority stockholders. They have reached 33% of the ownership of the NKB. Nowadays, nearly 20 stockholders have 19% of the NKB. This time, approximately two years after the last acquisition, Fleury purchased 100% of the stocks of the URP with resources from the raising of funds and lines of credit from national banks. The inclusion of the URP allows Fleury to strengthen the division of imaging examinations, not only with the physical structure but with a body of specialized doctors as well. Currently, imaging diagnostics represent nearly 30% of the entire income Fleury has with examinations. The share of the segment may rise to 40% in the future, since it has grown at rates higher than those of the division of laboratory analyses. In the case of Dasa, imaging services represented 36% of the revenue of the last quarter.