£200m turnover pharmaceutical wholesaler expands with acquisition

£200m-turnover pharmaceutical wholesaler Lexon has acquired a chain of retail pharmacies as it continues to deliver its acquisitive growth strategy and geographic expansion plans.

Lexon, headquartered in Redditch, has purchased Vittoria Healthcare, which has branches across North Wales and Wirral, to expand the retail pharmacy arm of the business as well as refinancing its existing banking facilities.

With finance support from NatWest and Lloyds, the acquisition of Vittoria Healthcare, which has 11 pharmacies, enables Lexon to expand further into the North West and Wales using the existing distribution hubs.

The family-run business has been operated by four principal co-founders since 1995 and since then has grown significantly across its wholesale and retail operations.

Across its distribution hubs in Redditch, Durham, Leeds and Dublin and its UK wide retail pharmacies, Lexon now has a total workforce of over 1000.

Pritesh Sonpal, director of Lexon UK, said: “With the support of NatWest and Lloyds Banking Group, we are extremely pleased to conclude the addition of 11 further pharmacies, taking us to a total of 67 across the UK. This further supports our core business that distributes pharmaceuticals to over 1800 independent pharmacies daily across the UK and Ireland.”

Richard Parks, relationship director at NatWest, said: “Following the support we provided to Lexon in acquiring Vittoria Healthcare, we look forward to continuing our relationship with the management team to deliver the acquisitive growth strategy of the business.”

Tom Horton, relationship director at Lloyds, added: “It’s great to be supporting Lexon with a competitive funding package that allows the management team to complete the quality acquisition of another established business in the sector”

Partners involved in the funding deal included Lloyds Bank, Pinsent Masons and Irwin Mitchell.