Treasury Ministry to sell Biomed in 2011?

2010-08-31

The Polish Treasury Ministry is planning to renew the invitation to tender for IBSS Biomed, the state-owned producer of sera and vaccines, Maciej Wewior, the Ministry’s spokesperson, revealed. The previous call for bids was closed in October 2009 because of a lack of interested parties. Currently the company is undergoing restructuring, and the effort to privatise it will likely be repeated in 2011.
Between the third and fourth quarters of 2010 the Treasury plans to launch an invitation to tender in the privatisation of CF Cefarm Warszawa, a drug distributor. The Ministry is also considering selling 40% of shares in Cefarm Rzeszow, another drug distributor in which the majority stake is owned by ACP Pharma. The Ministry is currently analysing the most appropriate procedure to finalise the sale.
Meanwhile, Polski Holding Farmaceutyczny (PHF) has given itself until the fourth quarter of the year to decide on the best mode for privatising Polfa Warszawa, following the collapse of talks with Polpharma and Adamed earlier in July because the submitted bids fell below expectations. The sale of Polfa Tarchomin is expected to be completed by end-year.



One of the reasons why the privatisation of Polfa Warszawa failed might have been the Treasury's high financial expectations following Polfa's very good sales results in the first six months of the year: revenues increased by 18% more than the overall market. At the same time bidders tend to be cautious and focused on Polfa's profitability which was not stellar at all (net profit on par with 2009 which was a very good year for the pharmaceutical industry).
Similar problems have haunted the Treasury as it has tried and failed to sell state-owned sanatorium medicine providers. Prospective investors are discouraged by the poor profitability of the sanatoriums, e.g. Szczawno-Jedlina and Kamien Pomorski. The pharmaceutical distributor CF Cefarm Warszawa also posted weak financial results.

Monika Stefanczyk
Head Pharmaceutical Market Analyst
PMR Publications