Uriach is preparing for its entry into France, a goal that the Catalan company has been pursuing for years. It is the big market that remains pending since it began its expansion in Europe with the aim of leading the natural consumer healthcare (NCHC) segment, made up of over-the-counter medicines, natural products, and food supplements.
The owner of brands such as Biodramina, Fisiocrem, Cistitus, Utabon, and Aerored is looking for a financial partner who will enter the shareholding, until now completely dominated by the fifth generation of the Uriach family. According to its CEO, Oriol Segarra, the new member will come to hold a maximum of between 20% and 30% of the capital, depending on the size of the company to be acquired to reach the neighboring country. Esteve, another large Catalan pharmaceutical company, has recently followed the same strategy, with the entry into its capital of the German investment fund Lubea.
The operation in France is expected to be the largest acquisition Uriach has faced in its 185-year history. It is expected to surpass the incorporation of Sidroga in 2021, a company with a turnover of 60 million euros and a workforce of 150 employees, allowing it to enter Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. Before that, the most important had been that of the Italian Laborest in 2015.
The entry of a partner into the shareholding will mean taking another step in the transformation process that the company began more than ten years ago, based on the strategic focus on the NCHC segment, abandoning other business lines, internationalization, and its professionalization, incorporating an external CEO and establishing a board of directors with seven members, in which only three are Uriach. This stage of change of direction has allowed the company to go from invoicing 30 million euros only in Spain when Segarra arrived to revenues of 272 million euros in 2022 with a presence in seven countries and distribution of its products in 70. In addition, Spain has come to represent only 25% of revenues, with about 70 million euros in 2022.
The expansion in Europe has to serve to reach a turnover of between 350 and 400 million euros by 2025. Pending the major acquisition in France, in addition to other operations in the markets where it already operates, Uriach forecasts a turnover of 310 million euros this 2023, 15% more than last year, a double-digit growth that the company has maintained over the last ten years. Likewise, this fiscal year will have left behind the supply problems that hampered the company in 2022, resulting in a loss of between 4 and 5 million euros in revenue.
Since Uriach sold its B2B pharmaceutical business and its Spanish factories in mid-2021, with the aim of continuing to focus on the natural consumer healthcare segment, the company has stopped manufacturing its products and commissions them from other companies. In fact, it only has two small factories in Germany linked to the acquisition it made in 2021. Mostly, the production partners it works with are located in Spain and Italy, with some also in Germany.