China’s Fosun Pharma to buy French drug distributor Tridem in overseas expansion push
The ambitious Chinese pharmaceutical company has been expanding its overseas presence in recent years, and the deal could give it access to the French company’s sales network in Africa
Shanghai Fosun Pharmaceutical Group, one of China’s top drug companies, will buy all the shares in French drug distributor Tridem for 63 million euros (US$73 million), as it continues its aggressive expansion into overseas markets.
Through the acquisition of Tridem, which has a presence in 21 French-speaking African countries and regions, Fosun Pharma could tap into the promising continent with the help of Tridem’s “mature sales network and upstream and downstream resources”, the company said in a filing to the Hong Kong stock exchange on Sunday.
A subsidiary of China’s Fosun Group, which is led by billionaire Guo Guangchang, Fosun Pharma has in recent years been accelerating its push into overseas markets, including Europe, Africa, the US and India.
“Fosun Pharma has a reasonable product line-up and is making a continuing push to release new products,” wrote analyst Xu Jiaxi at Industrial Securities in a recent note. “Its continuing overseas acquisitions will contribute to the company’s profits.”
Fosun Pharma is scheduled to release its earnings results for the third quarter on Monday evening. Its net revenue could reach 4.2 billion yuan (US$631.88 million) for the period, a 4.5 per cent decrease from 4.4 billion yuan in the second quarter, according to a consensus of analysts’ estimates collected by Bloomberg.