The Aenova Group, one of the leading companies in the pharmaceutical and healthcare industry, is continuing its successful period of growth.
As Aenova has already announced, it has found in Haupt Pharma, a company specialising in contract development and manufacturing for the pharmaceutical industry, a partner which will help it achieve a strategic expansion of its portfolio.
Almost a year after the successful takeover of the Temmler Group, the Aenova Group is increasing its annual turnover by around 60% to more than €750m. The agreement has now been signed, but the purchase price remains confidential. The transaction will go ahead subject to the approval of the relevant competition authorities, but is expected to become legally binding at the end of 2013.
Aenova and Haupt Pharma both have production sites in Germany and other European countries and, at the same time, both companies have a global focus.
Aenova Group CEO Heiner Hoppmann said: "The strategic activities of both companies complement each other very well and this move gives us further areas of expertise strongly focusing on forward-looking sectors in the pharmaceutical market, which are a perfect fit with our existing portfolio."
The merger will add areas such as sterile manufacturing and the production of special active ingredients (including hormones, antibiotics and cytostatics) for the pharmaceutical industry to Aenova’s existing range of solid, semi-solid and liquid dosage forms. The company’s full service portfolio will in future include all the product groups and all the main dosage forms for medicines and dietary supplements.
These new areas of expertise and the expansion of its range of products and services will strengthen the Aenova Group’s European market position and also increase its importance on the global market.
The Aenova Group’s existing production network will increase from eight to 21 sites. In addition to new production facilities in Germany (Berlin, Brackenheim, Münster, Gronau, Regensburg, Wolfratshausen) and in Europe, Aenova will also acquire its first site in Asia (Japan). The number of employees will increase from 2,500 to more than 4,000.
The merger of the two companies also offers the ideal opportunity for Haupt Pharma to consolidate and continue the growth that it has experienced over recent years. Otto Prange, chairman of the supervisory board of Haupt Pharma, will continue to accompany the enterprise in the future as co-shareholder of the Aenova Group. As he explained: "The merger will increase our competitiveness in a challenging market and, as a result, make us significantly more attractive to our customers."
This important transaction is financed with a combination of debt and equity. The debt financing was arranged by IKB, JP Morgan and UBS as joint underwriters and bookrunners with the support of RBI, SEB and UniCredit as MLAs and non-physical bookrunners as well as Commerzbank, DZ Bank, GE Capital and Mizuho as MLAs. In addition, IKB and UBS acted as financial advisors to Aenova Group. The equity was essentially provided by funds advised by BC Partners. The investor, which is one of the leading private equity companies, acquired the Aenova Group in August 2012 and has put the group on course for growth.