Imexpharm may scrap FOL if market winds are right
Imexpharm may scrap FOL if market winds are right
Imexpharm Pharmaceutical Joint Stock Company, Vietnam's fourth-biggest pharmaceutical firm, will consider scrapping the foreign ownership limit if this becomes a common trend.
Nguyen Quoc Dinh, chairman of Imexpharm (IMP), told VIR that the company is not an exception to this trend. However, at present, IMP has yet to have any plans to remove the FOL as no stakeholders have submitted a proposal to this effect yet.
Imexpharm's FOL now remains set at 49 per cent. The company has Balestrand Limited (6.09 per cent), Franklin Templeton Investment Funds-Templeton Frontier Markets Fund (8.49 per cent), and Kwe Beteiligungen AG (8.23 per cent) as foreign shareholders.
The drug maker aims to fetch a total revenue of VND1.26 trillion ($57.27 million) in the second half of this year, up 23.4 per cent on-year, while making a pre-tax profit of over VND160 billion ($7.27 million), up 14 per cent on-year.
At present, IMP is developing two new factories. Binh Duong high-tech pharmaceutical plant, coming at a cost of VND370 billion ($16.8 million), is over 60 per cent built and is scheduled to be put into operation in late 2019. Vinh Loc high-tech antibiotic plant, which will end up costing VND180 billion ($8.2 million), is 95 per cent built and is scheduled to open in late 2018.
When the two new facilities are put into operation, they will increase IMP’s revenue by 15-28 per cent and profit by 12-15 per cent on average in the 2017-2021 period.
In the first half of 2017, revenue from IMP-made products accounted for 83.9 per cent of the firm’s total net revenue of VND510.4 billion ($23.2 million), up 17.1 per cent on-year.
"Of this total, revenue from OTC drugs made up 81.7 per cent and rose 15.9 per cent on-year. ETC drugs accounted for 18.3 per cent, ascending 14.3 per cent on-year,” Dinh added.
In fact, scrapping the FOL seems an inevitable trend among leading Vietnamese pharma firms.
Vietnam’s biggest publicly-traded drug maker, Hau Giang Pharmaceutical JSC (DHG), has decided to entirely lift its FOL from January 1, 2018.
DHG now has Taisho Pharmaceutical Holdings, one of the five biggest pharma firms in Japan, as a strategic foreign shareholder with 24.5 per cent, followed by FTIF Templeton Frontier Markets Fund. State Capital Investment Corporation (SCIC) is the biggest stakeholder with 43.3 per cent.
DHG will be the second Vietnamese pharma firm to remove the FOL, following the third biggest listed domestic drug maker, Domesco (DMC).
Last September, DMC became an industry pioneer when it decided to remove its FOL. At the time, other pharma firms, including DHG, were gripped by fear of being acquired.
