Advent begins to invest in Terapia

Several months after taking over drugmaker Terapia Cluj-Napoca, US financial group Advent International is beginning the investments scheduled to continue the company’s modernisation.

Therefore, Advent, which controls some 94% in Terapia, will operate a $4m capital increase next month. The takeover transaction for Terapia revolved around $45 million. “The money from the capital increase will be used to invest in equipment for the injection unit, to increase the working capital, expand the distribution activity, develop and buy new pharmaceutical products, and to meet the environment requirements,” the Advent official in Romania Emma Popa – Radu told Ziarul Financiar.

Advent, one of the world’s biggest investment fund managers, took over Terapia stating its plans to redouble the company’s value in the next four years, and to sell it afterwards to a strategic investor interested in Romania. The turnover and, implicitly, the company’s value are to increase both from exporting drugs on the eastern markets and from launching new products on the domestic market, according to Advent officials.

The company will consequently have to invest in developing new products or buy some already registered ones and building up its distribution unit.

Terapia is Romania’s second-largest drugmaker after Sicomed Bucharest, with 3.7% in market share, and the fifth-largest player on a fragmented market exceeding 600 million euros every year, after GlaxoSmithKline (UK), Novartis (Switzerland), Pfizer (US) and Sicomed. Terapia is currently posting more than $32 million in turnover and net profit of $7-8 million.

Before Advent, Terapia was also controlled by financial investors. They started a complex restructuring process in 2000, which Advent will continue. The process consisted in halving the number of employees, appointing a new management team, investing to meet the Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) standards and launching new products.
laurentiu.ispir@zf.ro