Egypt’s largest drug distributor, the United Company of Pharmacists, is studying several alternatives for financial restructuring, including establishing a holding company for non-banking financial activities, selling a share of the company to a strategic investor, and obtaining a financial loan from the Arab African International Bank (AAIB), sources close to the matter told Daily News Egypt.
The sources added that the company is considering a comprehensive financial restructuring of its operations and that the idea of establishing a holding for financial activities aims to add factoring and financial leasing activity, for the purpose of factoring for clients and financial leasing to rotate the assets owned by it to create liquidity.
According to the sources, there is interest from several institutions to acquire a stake in the company in the event of a decision to sell, explaining that the option to sell a stake to a strategic investor is on the list of alternatives that it is studying.
The sources added that it also started initial negotiations with AAIB to obtain a loan, with the aim of using it to restructure the operations.
The business model of the United Company of Pharmacists is based on playing the role of an intermediary company, which obtains medicine from factories and distributes it to pharmacies and chains in exchange for a profit rate.
The company was established in 1996 specializing in the distribution of medicines. It has the largest share in the market for distributing medicines. According to the latest information about the company, it markets and distributes more than 12,500 pharmaceutical products and 4,500 personal care products, and it also provides the largest direct coverage in all healthcare sectors in Egypt through a huge number of delegates and billions of sales.
