Ranbaxy Russia buy talks fail

Health Net Corp, majority stakeholder in Akrikhin, wants more than $100 mn

Ranbaxy Laboratories, the country's largest pharmaceutical company by sales as well as market share, will have to wait longer to enter the $5 billion Russian pharmaceuticals market.

Its planned acquisition of Russian generic drug maker Akrikhin, the next step in the Indian company's globalisation drive, is believed to have fallen through on account of differences over valuation.

Ranbaxy Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer Malvinder Mohan Singh said: "We are actively evaluating a handful of acquisition opportunities across key markets, but I cannot comment on the specifics."

Ranbaxy was looking to acquire Akrikhin "" one of the largest Russian drug makers "" at $100 million. According to sources, talks fell through when Health Net Corporation, which is the majority stakeholder in Akrikhin, demanded too high a price for its 80 per cent stake.

It could not be ascertained if any other Indian pharma company was in the fray to acquire Akrikhin.

Akrikhin, based in the Moscow region, is one of the top five pharma companies, supplies its drugs to the Russian government and has a pipeline of over 140 products with substantial investments in its manufacturing facilities in the last few years. All these could have give a fillip to Ranbaxy's overseas strategy, a sector analyst said.

With Akrikhin off the radar, Ranbaxy is on the lookout for more targets in the $5 billion Russian pharma market, growing at 8-10 per cent emerging as an important market. The market has remained largely unexplored by Indian companies, even though it contributed $33 million to Ranbaxy's last year turnover of $1,178 million.

Singh often said in the past that he was looking at a mix of organic and inorganic growth opportunities to achieve the company's turnover target of $2 billion by 2007. The company has built up a warchest of $1.5 billion, a part of which came from internal accruals and $440 million by issuing foreign currency convertible bonds early this year.

Soon after this issue, it went on an acquisition spree, wrapping up Terapia in Romania for $ 324 million, Ethimed NV in Belgium and Allen S.p.A in Italy.