Antwerp/Munich/Mannheim/Isenbüttel — The Euro­pean invest­ment company Gimv has agreed with the respec­tive owners of the Medi-Markt Home­­care-Service GmbH, based in Mann­heim, and the Isen­­bü­t­­tel-based Medi Markt Service Nord Ost GmbH and the respec­tive asso­cia­ted compa­nies concluded an agree­ment to take over the majo­rity of the shares in the company. This is a succes­sion situa­tion forboth compa­nies. — Gimv is thus expan­ding its Health & Care port­fo­lio to include a leading supplier of medi­cal aids in Germany, which is expec­ted to grow further in the coming years. The remai­ning shares will be acqui­red by the desi­gna­ted CEO of the Medi Markt Group, Markus Reichel. The tran­sac­tion is still subject to the usual regu­la­tory appr­oval and is expec­ted to be comple­ted in a few weeks.

The two compa­nies and their affi­lia­ted compa­nies, which toge­ther have around 225 employees, have previously opera­ted with diffe­rent regio­nal focu­ses. In the future, they are to operate as a group and uniformly under the Medi-Markt brand; Mann­heim will become the head­quar­ters. Markus Reichel, who was previously Mana­ging Direc­tor of Medi-Markt Home­­care-Service GmbH, will become Mana­ging Direc­tor of the over­all group and, as part of the tran­sac­tion, also a co-part­­ner. The compa­nies specia­lize in the mail order busi­ness with auxi­liary and care aids for home consump­tion; a parti­cu­lar focus is on consul­ting and regu­lar supply of products in the area of absor­bent incon­ti­nence aids. In addi­tion, the 12,000-item port­fo­lio also includes areas such as drai­ning incon­ti­nence aids, diabe­tes control, ostomy care, ente­ral nutri­tion, home care (disin­fec­tion and protec­tion) and perso­nal care, inclu­ding private labels. Medi-Markt is one of the most important suppli­ers of incon­ti­nence aids and ostomy care in the coun­try. The entire group turns over more than 50 million euros a year.

Medi-Markt supplies around 150,000 end consu­mers every year. A large propor­tion of the products are prescri­bed by doctors and hospi­tals on the basis of prescrip­ti­ons and billed to health and long-term care insu­r­ers, for whom Medi-Markt has been a relia­ble part­ner for many years.

“Toge­ther with our new growth part­ner Gimv, we want to further expand our range of services and also move into adja­cent segments. In addi­tion, acqui­si­ti­ons of suita­ble compa­nies are being conside­red,” explains Markus Reichel, Mana­ging Direc­tor of Medi-Markt Home­­care-Service GmbH and future CEO of the Group. The main driver here is demo­gra­phic deve­lo­p­ment, which is expec­ted to lead to a further increase in demand for Medi-Markt products — the propor­tion of the popu­la­tion with incon­ti­nence problems alone, curr­ently esti­ma­ted at seven million, is expec­ted to rise to nine million within the next 20 years.

“The compa­nies of the Medi-Markt Group enable many people to live a more self-deter­­mi­­ned ever­y­day life and have achie­ved a strong market posi­tion with high quality and great commit­ment. At the same time, as effi­ci­ent provi­ders, they contri­bute to the cost-effec­­ti­­ve­­ness of care,” says Phil­ipp v. Hammer­stein (photo), Part­ner at Gimv in the Health & Care divi­sion at the Munich office. “We look forward to vigo­rously conti­nuing the success story of these two leading specia­lists, inclu­ding lever­aging the poten­tial from the merger. Toge­ther with the expe­ri­en­ced manage­ment, we will focus on orga­nic growth as well as on a buy-and-build strategy.”

Thenew invest­ment marks Gimv’s seventh invest­ment in the German-spea­king health­care market. This means that Gimv curr­ently has 20 invest­ments in compa­nies from the health­care and life scien­ces sectors — the 16-strong, pan-Euro­­pean team of the Gimv invest­ment plat­form Health & Care is thus one of the most active Euro­pean inves­tors in the health­care indus­try. The port­fo­lio also includes seve­ral hospi­tal and prac­tice groups, medi­cal tech­no­logy and biotech compa­nies, among others.