Zentiva set to change hands in €4.1bn private equity deal

Generics company Zentiva is reported to be poised for a sale by current owner Advent International to US investment group GTCR – the second private equity handover of a European drugmaker this month.

The Financial Times has said that Chicago-based GTCR has agreed a €4.1 billion (around $4.8 billion) deal to take control of the Czech Republic-headquartered company, seven years after it was sold by Sanofi to Advent for €1.9 billion – suggesting a healthy return on Advent's initial investment.

The announcement comes just days after private equity group CapVest bought a majority stake in Germany's Stada from investment groups Bain Capital and Cinven in a deal that market watchers say values it at around €10 billion.

The FT said that the handover of Zentiva to GTCR has already been signed and sealed and will be announced "in the coming days," citing people familiar with the matter, who have also suggested that GTCR was previously in talks to buy Stada.

Zentiva sells a broad range of prescription and over-the-counter (OTC) medicines, operating in more than 30 countries, and under Advent's ownership has been expanding its portfolio with a series of in-licensing deals and acquisitions.

This year alone, it bought five consumer health brands from Italian company Aboca and licensed rights to an unidentified biosimilar TNF inhibitor - still in clinical development from India's Lupin for rheumatoid arthritis and other diseases – mainly in European and Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) markets.

Zentiva chief executive Steffen Saltofte, who joined the company from Acino two years ago, has been following the drive for growth started by predecessor Nick Haggar. It has doubled in size since 2020 and has expanded its geographical footprint to all of Europe, and now aims to serve one in five Europeans by the end of the decade.

That growth strategy also saw the company take a majority stake of publicly-listed German drugmaker Apontis Pharma – which specialises in developing single-pill formulations of generic medicine combinations for cardiovascular diseases – last year. The two companies have completed a full merger via a squeeze-out deal that concluded in June.

Zentiva traces its origins back more than 500 years to a small pharmacy that still exists today in the heart of Prague and now employs almost 5,000 workers across Europe.