Pharmaceutical company signs deal for £70m European group merger

Veterinary science business Animalcare has agreed to merge with Ecuphar NV, a European animal health company.

The York-based group is raising £30m for the acquisition, which consists of a reverse takeover, subject to shareholder agreement. This means that Animalcare will be re-admitted on the stock market once the deal is completed.

The complex deal involves both cash and shares, £4m from the balance sheet as the fundraising and issuing of 29.3m in shares.

Ecuphar is majority owned by Ecuphar Invest NV, an entity controlled by founder Chris Cardon, and Alychlo NV, the investment vehicle of Marc Coucke, a highly successful entrepreneur and investor, who founded Omega Pharma, a billion-dollar Belgian-based company which was acquired by Perrigo in 2015.

Together they hold 96.4% of the shares in the business.

Animalcare are funding the acquisition of the company through the issue of shares and cash to Ecuphar’s vendors. Edwin Torr, a proposed director and former executive of Dechra, is intending to purchase approximately 85,000 placing shares in the placing to show his support for the acquisition.

It will create a specialist pan-European animal health company and the acquisition will enable Animalcare to enhance scale and capabilities.

Ecuphar is led by founder and chief executive officer, Chris Cardon and for the year ended 31 December 2016, Ecuphar recorded revenue of £68.4m and underlying EBITDA of £8.9m.

Ecuphar acquired Irish company Nutri-Science joined ECUPHAR in 2009 and in recent years has expanded in Germany.

Iain Menneer, chief executive officer of Animalcare said: “We are very pleased to present to shareholders this highly complementary acquisition which will provide enhanced scale and capabilities for the Group and create a pan-European animal health platform from which to accelerate growth.

“The acquisition will be truly transformational: it will expand our direct sales operation to cover seven countries and our international reach into 50 export markets, as well as greatly increasing the depth and diversity of our licensed veterinary medicines product range.

“As an enlarged Group we expect to deliver a growing, highly cash generative, dividend paying company with a solid pipeline of new products and multiple cross-selling opportunities.”

A team from Squire Patton Boggs, winners of the Legal Team of the Year award at TheBusinessDesk.com’s Rainmaker Awards 2017 last night, advised on the deal. The team consisted of Hannah Kendrick, Adam Hastings and Jonathan Ross.

 

Click here to sign up to receive our new South West business news...
Close