Advent International in €1.91bn Zentiva carve-out

Advent will invest via its latest vehicle Advent International GPE VIII, which closed on €12bn in March 2016. The vehicle was used in January 2018 to complete the acquisition of French company Circet, in a deal valued at around €1bn.

Sanofi intends to refocus its strategy by selling the generic drugs arm, a non-core business, while Advent plans to invest in Zentiva's operations, production facilities and R&D pipeline. 

Advent declined to comment on the financing of the transaction.

Advent has previously shown appetite for investing in the sector, bidding for Germany-based pharmaceutical company Stada alongside Permira in 2017. The consortium nonetheless lost to Bain and Cinven, which completed a takeover valuing the company at €5.6bn.          

Sanofi is a biopharmaceutical company founded in 1973. Headquartered in Paris, it generated a turnover of €35bn in 2017.  

Sanofi announced this week that it had sold 12 pharmaceutical brands to Charterhouse Capital Partners' French portfolio company Cooper-Vemedia for €158m. The assets acquired by Cooper-Vemedia include dermatology, well-being and eyecare products that are primarily sold across France and Italy.

Company
Zentiva has a generic drugs portfolio covering a range of therapeutic areas. Headquartered in Prague, Zentiva sells its products in 25 European countries.

With manufacturing facilities in Prague and Bucharest, the business  generated net sales of €739m in 2017 and posted an EBITDA of €155m, according to a source familiar with the situation.

People
Sanofi – Olivier Brandicourt (CEO).  
Advent International – Tom Allen (co-head of European healthcare team); Cédric Chateau (managing director).

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