Pharmaceutical sector should undergo mergers and acquisitions season
DCI
One of the sectors that will continue on the rise this year is the pharmaceutical sector and the company that will be on the spotlight will be Hypermarcas, as told DCI the specialists of the Getúlio Vargas Foundation and the BDO audit firm. "The company has made it clear that their strategy is to grow through acquisitions, thus it should make new purchases this year", said the Professor of Corporate Finance and coordinator of the course of Mergers and Acquisitions of the Getulio Vargas Foundation, Oscar Malvessi. The president of the BDO audit firm, Eduardo Pocetti shares this opinion. "It is a strong segment in which competition is fierce and innovation should be constant. Undoubtedly, the mergers will be very useful for the companies to strengthen themselves even more", he concludes.
This year, Hypermarcas has already begun investigating Teuto Farmacêutica, which has been in the market for more than 60 years and had earnings of R$ 300 million (US$ 152.3 million) in 2009. "Hypermarcas has already talked to us about a possible purchase, nonetheless, we are still not interested in selling the company", told DCI the President of Teuto, Marcelo Leite Henriques.
Teuto has also affirmed it intends to launch 90 pharmaceutical products in the market in the area of generic drugs in the first half this year. The company has also said it intends to make small purchases this year to add new lines of products and complement the existing lines. After that, the company admits the possibility of selling the company. "At a first moment, we intend to add value to the company. Nevertheless, nothing prevents us from selling the company in the future", said the President. However, when asked about the values being offered, he preferred not to make any comments.
Hypermarcas already has a history of acquisitions of brands and companies like Assolan, Monange, Risqué, Benegrip, Apracur, Doril, Lisador, Engov, Gelol, Zero-Cal, Pom Pom, Olla, Bozzano and Neoquimica, which was acquired at the end of the year and assessed at the value of R$ 1.3 billion (US$ 755.8 million). Companies like Novartis and pharmaceutical rivals like GlaxoSmithKline and Sanofi-Aventis are growing in segments such as consumption and generic drugs to the extent they face the greatest loss of patent protection of the history.
This is something that is already happening abroad. Last Friday, 8, Novartis AG announced it will pay US$ 28.1 billion to Nestlé SA as part of its prolonged attempt to buy the Alcon Inc., an American firm of ophthalmic products, resulting in the biggest acquisition in the history of the Swiss business community. The agreement, which began with Novartis's buying 25% of Alcon from Nestlé in 2008, together with an option to acquire the rest of the share of Nestlé, should cost the pharmaceutical group headquartered in Basel, Switzerland, US$ 49.7 billion.
Currently, the Brazilian market features only three large national groups: Ache, EMS and Eurofarma that would not cost less than R$ 3 billion (US$ 1.74 billion). Ache, for instance, would be assessed between R$ 4 billion (US$ 2.3 billion) and R$ 5 billion (US$ 2.9 billion). The Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) published that one of the highlights of last year was the pharmaceutical segment with growth of 7.2% in the year.