Alliance Pharma buys Asia-Pacific rights to Nizoral dandruff shampoo

Speciality pharmaceutical company Alliance Pharma has agreed to acquire exclusive marketing rights to medical anti-dandruff shampoo brand Nizoral in the Asia-Pacific region from Johnson & Johnson subsidiary Janssen Pharmaceutica, it announced on Tuesday, for a total consideration of £60m.

The AIM-traded firm said the acquisition, which would boost Alliance's “successful and rapidly growing” APAC distributor business, was expected to be materially earnings-enhancing in the first full year of ownership.

Alliance said the acquisition would be funded by an underwritten equity placing of new ordinary shares in the capital of the company to raise gross proceeds of £34m, at an indicative placing price of 91p per share, to be confirmed pursuant to an accelerated bookbuild process, as well as by the draw down of £27.9m of a £35m extension of the group's debt facilities.

The placing was being conducted by means of an accelerated bookbuild process, which was launched immediately following Tuesday morning’s announcement.

Rights to the Nizoral brand were being purchased in more than 15 countries including Japan, Thailand, South Korea, China and Pacific markets.

In 2017, the Nizoral rights achieved net sales of £18.5m in the APAC region, and taking into account Alliance's anticipated costs, the rights would have generated EBITDA on a pro forma basis of £7.1m in 2017.

Nizoral would represent Alliance's fourth ‘international star brand’, complementing ‘Kelo-cote’, ‘MacuShield’ and ‘Vamousse’.

“Asia-Pacific is Alliance's fastest-growing region and we are delighted to strengthen the development of our APAC business through this earnings-enhancing acquisition of Nizoral, an excellent brand with a long medical heritage,” said Alliance chief executive Peter Butterfield.

“Nizoral has significant sales, profits and growth potential in the APAC region and will become the fourth International Star brand in our product portfolio.”