Nazca buys biopharmaceutical company Diater in €45m deal

Alessia Argentieri
07 June 2019

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Spanish mid-market GP Nazca Capital has acquired an 85% stake in biopharmaceutical company Diater from pharma specialist Ferrer.

The deal is valued at €45m, which equates to 9x the company's 2018 EBITDA.

Diater co-founders Ricardo Palacios and José Ángel López, chair and CEO of the company respectively, will reinvest in the business alongside other members of the management team.

The GP intends to support Diater's growth by investing in R&D, developing new diagnosis products and immunotherapy treatments, and boosting its expansion into new market segments, both domestically and internationally. In addition, the company intends to pursue a buy-and-build strategy in order to consolidate and expand its market position and complement its product range with new acquisitions.

This is the fifth investment made by Nazca Fund IV, which closed on €275m in 2017 and is now around 60% deployed. The vehicle deploys equity tickets in the €15-50m bracket to acquire majority or significant minority stakes in Iberian companies operating in a wide range of sectors - primarily business services, retail, industrial, logistics and healthcare - with revenues ranging between €15-200m.

In addition to the equity drawn down from the fund, CaixaBank provided a debt package to support the deal, Unquote understands.

Company
Founded in 1999 and headquartered in Leganés, near Madrid, Diater is a biopharmaceutical company specialising in allergy diagnostics and allergen immunotherapy. The company employs a staff of 110 people in two manufacturing plants located in Madrid. It treats 55,000 patients per year and exports 20% of its products outside Spain. Diater generated EBITDA of €5m from revenues of €17m in 2018 and expects to reach turnover of €20m in 2019.

People
Nazca Private Equity – Carlos Pérez de Jáuregui (partner).
Diater - Ricardo Palacios (co-founder, chair); José Ángel López (co-founder, CEO).

Advisers
Equity - WindCorp Translink (corporate finance); PwC (financial due diligence); Herbert Smith Freehills (legal).
Vendor - Deloitte (corporate finance).