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36.6 Buys All Over Russia
Pharmacy Chain 36.6 announced yesterday the acquisition of eight regional chains in Ural, Siberia, Povolzhie and southern Russia. The deals were closed in the fourth quarter of 2006, enabling 36.6 to grab control over 88 pharmacies and expand to 900 drugstores. Past year, 36.6 and Rigla widened the coverage by 90 percent each, having drawn away from the key rivals.
Pharmacy Chain 36.6 entered into an agreement for the acquisition and joint management over the Urals Atoll-Pharm chain of 38 drugstores in Ekaterinburg and five drugstores in Tyumen.
Apart from Atoll-Pharm, 36.6 struck a few more big deals late past year. It bought out six drugstores of Samara InterLek, ten drugstores of Megg chain in Sochi, two chains in Krasnodar – Novaya Apteka Spasatel and Spas (five and nine drugstores respectively), three drugstores of Volgograd Verbena chain, five drugstores of Pskovskya chain in Astrakhan and seven drugstores of STPK chain in Novosibirsk. Therefore, 36.6 acquired 88 drugstores in seven regions with the aggregate turnover of $42 million by the past year’s results.
According to DSM Group General Director Alexander Kuzin, the worth of all deals reached $25 million. The company will continue buying out regional chains in 2007, said 36.6 Executive Director Anton Parkansky. But it won’t be purchasing so aggressively in 2008, focusing on organic growth instead.
Pharmacy Chain 36.6 is the leading pharmacy retailer in Russia with roughly 900 drugstores under control. Sergey Krivosheev and Artem Bektemirov are the holders of 70 percent, while the remaining 30 percent of the stocks are floating on MICEX and RTS. The company’s capitalization was $432.8 million as of yesterday.
Past year, 36.6 acquired about 250 and launched around 150 drugstores, having stepped up the store number by 89.8 percent. The rates of expansion were similar in 2005, when the chain grew 75.9 percent.
Only one more pharmacy chain – Rigla - proved capable of keeping up with 36.6. Rigla that forms a holding with Protek pharmacy distributor widened 73.3 percent and 88.4 percent in 2005 and 2006 respectively (less the purchase of O3 in December 2006).
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of Jan. 17, 2007
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