The boys are back in town
However, when it comes to potential buy-ups, the company appears to have hit a stumbling block, viz. the lack of any obvious candidates.
First of all, the number one local generic firm, Polpharma, isn't for sale. And neither is Adamed, the local player rapidly moving into the top ten in terms of sales. And while Jelfa, control of which - oddly enough - was recently given to a shipyard by the state, is still on the privatization list, most commentators think dominion will eventually go to Ivax via Kutno.
Admittedly, there is the newly created govern-ment pharmaceutical holding PHF, whose shares are expected to float on the bourse before too long. But government statements to date allow for the release of no more than a 30 percent stake.
"Apart from that, the remaining small companies don't offer anything like the kind of scale that would be of any use to Recordati," explains Tomasz Bardziłowski, stock analyst at BZ WBK brokerage. And Italian analysts are also at a loss to come up with any suggestions.
Walter Bevilacqua, Recordati's vice president, however, hints at the possibility of a greenfield investment.
"It so happens that the most rational way into a market is to acquire a local firm, but we are also considering other possibilities," he says.
"Greenfield in the pharmaceutical industry doesn't necessarily mean building a factory... We might start by getting reimbursement approvals, and setting up sales networks, before going any further," he continues.
Italian analysts, though, have little faith in this tack. "All Recordati's previous foreign investments, that is, in France and Spain, have built on existing facilities, which is the best approach," says Maurizio Morretti, analyst at UniCredit Banca Mobiliare.
And Vittorio Villa, an analyst at ING Financial Markets, agrees, saying a buy-up is "definitely Recordati's main goal."
Throwing light on the reason why Recordati is looking to invest abroad, Morretti says it needs to minimize its exposure to expected cutbacks on drug spending by the Italian government.
"[Recordati's] first objective is to invest in the EU's most important market, Germany. Then Central Europe's biggest market, Poland," he says. "They want to spread themselves quickly, but they don't want to spend much money."
That is why, Morretti reasons, rather than just waiting for a suitable acquisition to appear, the company might embark on the rocky route of building up sales networks without a base.
And while Recordati may still regret having to swallow the bitter pill of selling its stake in Kutno to Ivax the last time around, at least, according to Villa, it managed to chalk up a net capital gain of around zł.9.1 million (€2 million) from effectively speculating on its own defeat.
First of all, the number one local generic firm, Polpharma, isn't for sale. And neither is Adamed, the local player rapidly moving into the top ten in terms of sales. And while Jelfa, control of which - oddly enough - was recently given to a shipyard by the state, is still on the privatization list, most commentators think dominion will eventually go to Ivax via Kutno.
Admittedly, there is the newly created govern-ment pharmaceutical holding PHF, whose shares are expected to float on the bourse before too long. But government statements to date allow for the release of no more than a 30 percent stake.
"Apart from that, the remaining small companies don't offer anything like the kind of scale that would be of any use to Recordati," explains Tomasz Bardziłowski, stock analyst at BZ WBK brokerage. And Italian analysts are also at a loss to come up with any suggestions.
Walter Bevilacqua, Recordati's vice president, however, hints at the possibility of a greenfield investment.
"It so happens that the most rational way into a market is to acquire a local firm, but we are also considering other possibilities," he says.
"Greenfield in the pharmaceutical industry doesn't necessarily mean building a factory... We might start by getting reimbursement approvals, and setting up sales networks, before going any further," he continues.
Italian analysts, though, have little faith in this tack. "All Recordati's previous foreign investments, that is, in France and Spain, have built on existing facilities, which is the best approach," says Maurizio Morretti, analyst at UniCredit Banca Mobiliare.
And Vittorio Villa, an analyst at ING Financial Markets, agrees, saying a buy-up is "definitely Recordati's main goal."
Throwing light on the reason why Recordati is looking to invest abroad, Morretti says it needs to minimize its exposure to expected cutbacks on drug spending by the Italian government.
"[Recordati's] first objective is to invest in the EU's most important market, Germany. Then Central Europe's biggest market, Poland," he says. "They want to spread themselves quickly, but they don't want to spend much money."
That is why, Morretti reasons, rather than just waiting for a suitable acquisition to appear, the company might embark on the rocky route of building up sales networks without a base.
And while Recordati may still regret having to swallow the bitter pill of selling its stake in Kutno to Ivax the last time around, at least, according to Villa, it managed to chalk up a net capital gain of around zł.9.1 million (€2 million) from effectively speculating on its own defeat.
