Investindustrial, the paneuropean private equity firm founded by Italian financier Andrea Bonomi, will buy Lifebrain ag, a Wien-based Holding company of diagnostic laboratories in Europe which reached 56.5 million euros in revenues in 2016 but kept on growing at high pace since then. Italian Antitrust Authority gave actually its go-ahead to the deal last month (see here the Authority information release).
more in detail, the acquisition will be made by Investindustrial VI Fund through the newco Grindoforo srl, controlled by Luxembourg veichle European Laboratory Services sarl. The seller is the veichle lb EK Management.
Lifebrain was founded in 2013 by its ceo Michael Havel, co-founder of FutureLab then merged with Synlab, a group of laboratories in Europe. In 2015 MCI.Euroventure 1.0 fund, managed by Private Equity Managers sa, controlled by Warsaw-listed private equity firm MCI Capital sa, supported Mr. Havel in developing the business all over Europe with a special focus on Italy.
Today Lifebrain operates in 15 italian regions through 90 different companies all controlled by Laboratorio Analisi Guidonia. In Italia Lifebrain has been aquiring a lot of laboratories in the last few years. The last deal was singed last September in Sardinia, with the acquisition of Laboratorio Mameli in Nuoro and Tecnologie e Ricerche Chimico Cliniche in Olbia (see here a previous post by BeBeez). In January 2017 Lifebrain had instead bought a group of laboratories in the Veneto region (see here aprevious post by BeBeez), while in 2016 the group made the most of its acquisitions in Italy such as the ones of laboratori Fleming Belluno (Veneto), Pignatelli e Ginosino (Puglia), Montella (Campania), Adige (Trentino Alto Adige), Ircas, Res Medica e Pasteur (Lazio), Estense (Emilia-Romagna), Valdarno (Toscana) e Istituto Biotest (Liguria). In 2015 Lifebrain had acquired Centro di Diagnostica Clinica Dott. E. Quarantelli srl (Napoli, see ahere a previous post by BeBeez), laboratorio di analisi Salus (Roma), Euromedical & Lab (Bologna) and Biomedica (Puglia). In May 2014, Lifebrain acquired gruppo Guidonia (Roma).
In order to fund more acquisitions in Italy, Lifebrain signed an agreement in November 2016 with a pool of banks (including Unicredit, Raiffeisen Bank International and VTB Bank) which issues a 90 million euros revolving line. At the end of 2016 Lifebrain had reached 11.6 million euros in revenues, with a negative ebitda of 7.8 millions and a net financial debt of 42.6 millions (see here an analysis by Leanus, after free registration and login), reflecting the aggressive investment strategy and the new debt.
