Kent Pharmaceutical and Athlone Laboratories
Liberty advise the management team of Kent Pharmaceutical and Athlone Laboratories on their acquisition by Duke Street Capital
Duke Street, the leading European midmarket private equity group, has agreed to acquire Kent Pharmaceuticals and Athlone Laboratories (“Kent” or the “Group”), manufacturers and distributors of specialist off-patent/generic pharmaceuticals with locations in both the UK and Ireland. Kent is currently owned by DCC Vital, part of DCC plc.
Kent is a UK market leader in several niche products in the large, growing and non-cyclical market for generic pharmaceuticals, selling primarily to the hospital and pharmacy wholesaler channels. Its portfolio of products is diversified across multiple therapeutic areas, with particular strengths in analgesics, anti-infectives and penicillin’s. Kent portfolio contains mainly niche, value-added products, which are complex to manufacture. A strong pipeline of new product development opportunities has already been put in place by the management. Athlone Laboratories is a leading European manufacturer of specialist beta-lactum antibiotics based in Ireland.
Duke Street is backing a strong management team at Kent, led by Chief Executive Debashis Dasgupta, who has strong international experience in the Pharmaceutical Industry with previous senior leadership positions in Sanofi and Ranbaxy. Kevin James, an experienced generics CEO/Chairman, will join the business as non-Executive Chairman. Kent’s future strategy will focus on new product development and expansion into other selected branded generic markets across the EMEA region, building further on the highly diversified and scaled specialist generics business it is today.
Liberty Corporate Finance advised the management team, led by Debashis Dasgupta and David Wright, on all aspects of the management incentive plan.