A&D Pharma, the company that owns the Sensiblu drugstore network and the medicine distribution company Mediplus, estimates to have made over 100 million euro turnover in 2003, 25% more than in the previous year, Dragos Dinu, A&D Pharma general manager told Ziarul Financiar.
Sensiblu is one of the biggest drugstore networks in Romania, as it consists of 74 locations, and Mediplus is the top player on the drug distribution market, accounting for approximately 18.5%.
The Sensiblu network accounts for 20-25% of the group's turnover, with the rest derived from the distribution business.
"Last year we opened 25 new drugstores, improved our product supply (both on the retail and on the distribution segment) and focused on those segments that did not have significant financing problems. At the same time, we experienced sound growth on the hospital segment," Dragos Dinu explained.
Until last year, Mediplus and Sensiblu used to be part of the A&D Holdings Group, which was operating in several fields and was controlled by a number of French, English and Lebanese businessmen.
The two companies were later bought by a Dutch venture capital company, Sograno, A&D Pharma says. The deal was conducted in form of a cession of shares by the four founding businessmen, and drew the attention of the Financial Guard at the time due to the complicated property transfer structure.
The deal was worth $27 million and Sograno bought more than 99% in Sensiblu and Mediplus.
"Once Sograno acquired the companies, the growth pace has been considerably increasing, because banks started to really fund us," Dinu specified.
The Sensiblu manager says the number of Sensiblu drugstores rose from 49 to 74 last year, following 1.8 million euro investments. At the same time, the company opened four new optical stores, a business it began in 2000 because it blended with the drug retail business.
The drug market, estimated at 620-650 million euros, in 2003 experienced its most severe shortage of cash after 1990, as the State's debts to the producers and suppliers of drugs and medical products were often upwards of 200 million euros. Most of this amount is actually made up of debts dating back to 2002.
"We did not have too much trouble collecting the money, because we chose to sell on the segments financed through the Health Ministry's programmes mainly. The difficulties of the system put us in a good position, I might add. The growth of sales on the hospital segment is one of our main goals for 2004," Dinu said.
laurentiu.ispir@zf.ro
Pentru alte știri, analize, articole și informații din business în timp real urmărește Ziarul Financiar pe WhatsApp Channels
