Sopharma

The leading pharma producer Sopharma posted 13% y/y growth of its revenues for FY2017, the Company announced in its regular monthly bulletin. Overall for 2017, the group increased its domestic sales by 3% and its export advanced by 21% y/y as Russian and Ukrainian markets began to recover.

Exports growth slightly decelerated after posting 20%+ growth in the middle of 2017 while domestic sales advanced in line with initial data. The Company has subsidiaries in Moldova, Russia, Serbia, Belarus, Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Ukraine and Kazakhstan. In April 2017, the Company acquired a 51% stake in Moldova’s drug distributor RAP Pharma International for an undisclosed price.

December performance

Results for the month of December 2017 were 21% y/y growth with 73% y/y rise in domestic sales and growth on and 4% growth in export.

Sopharma optimization and consolidation continues successfully

On 8 January 2018 Sopharma received permission from the Bulgarian Financial Supervision Commission to merge its subsidiary Unipharm, according to an announcement by the Company. Based on the fair value of the merger agreement, one Unipharm common share will be exchanged for 0.891512 shares in Sopharma. All conditions surrounding the merging will be discussed on the general meetings of the shareholders of both companies, which are expected to be scheduled in the beginning of 2018.

The merger with Unipharm is yet another step by Sopharma in optimizing its organizational structure. Unipharm is a smaller generic drugs manufacturer in Bulgaria, controlled by Sopharma, whose production has been contract related to the latter. In 2015, Sopharma merged its phytoprocessing subsidiary Bulgarian Rose-Sevtopolis.

Active trading

In the first half of December 2017 Sopharma informed that Rompharm Company has sold almost half of its stake in the Company and currently has 9.41% as of Dec 8th, 2017. At the same time, the Company has increased its bought back shares from c. 4.5% to 6.59% as of Dec. 7th, 2017, according to another regulatory filing. Sopharma acquired the additional shares at a price of BGN 4.27 per share.

Sopharma has been among the most traded companies on the Bulgarian Stock Exchange with c. 13 million shares or 9.8% of the registered capital changing hands from the start of December 2017. Some of the shares were also acquired by Sopharma’s CEO and key shareholder Ognyan Donev. On Dec. 6th, 2017, the Company disclosed Donev acquired 417 567 share at BGN 4.27 per share or c. 0.34% of the Company’s registered capital.

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