IMCD continues acquisition spree

IMCD, which had already made multiple acquisitions across the world, has announced two more in Mexico and a further one in Turkey. The company is the world’s fourth largest distributor of chemicals.

IMCD's Mexican affiliate, which was established in April to address the pharmaceuticals, food, nutrition and personal care industries, has acquired Millikan and Banner Química. Both are based in Mexico City, with combined revenues of $15 million and 60 employees in 2019.

Millikan in active in the food, nutrition, pharmaceuticals and industrial markets; while Banner offers formulation services for the personal care and home care sectors. They are said to “perfectly complement our existing operations in Mexico and strengthen our technical and commercial offering in a number of core market segments”.

Meanwhile, IMCD has also acquired the personal care business of Turkish distributor Ejder Kimya. This had sales of € 4.7 million in 2019 and Aylin Zakuto, managing director of IMCD Turkey, said that the buy was “a solid step to strengthen IMCD Turkey’s footprint in the personal care market in line with IMCD’s global growth strategy”. The deal should close in January 2021.

In October, IMCD had agreed to acquire the pharmaceutical business of Peak International Products, a Netherlands-based distributor of APIs in the Benelux, Vietnam, Germany and Israel. The business, which had sales of about €5.8 million in 2019, will be integrated into IMCD’s Pharmaceuticals business group.

Shortly before this, the company completed the much larger acquisition of a 70% majority stake in Signet Excipients, a Mumbai-based distributor of over 400 kinds of pharmaceutical and nutraceutical excipients in South Asia, the Middle East and Africa. Signet employs about 150 and had sales of €152 million in the 12 months to June 2020. IMCD will buy the rest of the company in 2024. Terms were not disclosed in either deal.

This was also the case earlier when IMCD bought South African distributor Siyeza Fine Chem and Vitaqualy of Brazil. Johannesburg-based Sizeya is active in pharmaceutical, veterinary, food and personal care ingredients. It employs 27 people, and turned over €11.7 million in 2019. Meanwhile, VitaQualy is a speciality ingredient distributor in the food, nutrition, pharmaceuticals and nutraceuticals markets, based in São Paulo. In 2019, it had revenues of BRL 26 million and eight employees. The company will be fully integrated in 2021.