Strides Arcolab, the Bangalore-based pharmaceutical company, is gearing for a fresh round of fund-raising, both debt and equity.
The company has planned to raise up to Rs 450 crore through equity, leveraging various instruments — qualified placements, depository receipts, etc. It will also ask for authorisation to raise its borrowing limit from the present Rs 1,500 crore to Rs 2,500 crore, at the extraordinary general meeting of the company, which has been convened for July 23. The company is presently leveraged 1.91 times. Senior officials say the proceeds will be used to pay for the Rs 900 crore of recent acquisitions. A third of this has already been paid from a licensing deal Strides had signed in December 2009 with Pfizer.
, the global first in drug sales. The collaboration was to have Strides manufacture 40 off-patent 40 sterile injectables and oral medicines, to be then sold in the US market by Pfizer.
This March, Strides bought half the equity in Aspen Pharmaceuticals, a South African generics’ drugmaker, for $117 million (Rs 530 crore). It also acquired Aspen’s unit in Brazil for $75 million, taking the acquisition costs to $192 million (nearly Rs 900 crore). It is understood that $67 million has been paid and another $25 million is expected to be paid by the end of this calendar year. More than half of this initial payout is understood to have been funded from the receipt of licensing fee and internal accruals. Strides has time till the end of 2011 to pay the remaining amount.
The company had posted net profit of Rs 39.8 crore for the January-March quarter (its financial year is the calendar one), a rise of 280 per cent over the corresponding period last year. Revenue was Rs 381.5 crore for this period, up by 30 per cent over the same period last year.
The company had 129 filings before various health regulators in the US and Europe by March-end, from which 32 were in pharma and 97 in specialities. It has got 38 approvals and is waiting for the remaining 91. The mid-size pharma company has 14 manufacturing facilities in six countries, including its joint venture with Aspen in India.