Nemera

Nemera designs and manufactures a full range of drug delivery systems including asthma inhalers, insulin pens, auto-injectors and nasal pumps

The group is the only global player 100% focused on healthcare and present across the pulmonary, parenteral, ENT, dermal and ophthalmic markets. The Nemera Group was carved out of Rexam plc in May 2014 and originally comprised two businesses: a healthcare devices business (Nemera) and a prescription retail containers and closures business (Centor).

Full Potential Plan

During our investment we worked in close partnership with the Nemera management team to define and execute the Full Potential Plan, with a focus on three core areas:

Operational Improvement

Montagu supported Nemera’s operational leadership to optimise core manufacturing operations with a focus on building operational control, creating a scalable platform for profitable growth, and optimising margins. Specifically, we focused on three areas:

  • Plant optimisation – redesigned sales and operational planning, production scheduling, quality management and maintenance across the business’ three main plants. Further optimised internal plant configuration to increase effective capacity and reduce growth investment requirements.
  • Procurement optimisation – centralised procurement management from all four plants under a single leadership, achieving significant one-off and ongoing savings on key inputs and raw materials.
  • SKU optimisation – reduced overall SKUs in line with product profit contribution.

Sales execution

Our initial focus was on supporting Nemera to define its strategy – where to play, how to win – which resulted in a renewed focus on reinforcing our leadership position in key Parenteral and Inhalation markets while gaining share in ENTD and Ophthalmic growth markets. We then worked with management to redesign the GTM structure in line with this new strategic focus, reorganising the sales team and introducing a new reporting structure.

We worked with the team to understand profitability at the customer and product level, the company’s competitive position, and pricing strategy, resulting in a more sophisticated and customised pricing model that better-matched price with value for customers. Procedural changes and supporting tools were developed to enable a seamless transformation for the team and customers.

M&A

Acquiring both Centor and Nemera from Rexam was key to winning the deal. However, Centor operated in a more price-sensitive, generic marketplace than Nemera and was quickly deemed non-core and divested, unlocking immediate value for shareholders and the broader business. Two further recaps during our investment hold period provided further opportunities to realise value for investors during the hold period.

In June 2021, Nemera acquired Milfra. With this acquisition, Nemera established an operational footprint in Brazil and expanded its product and services offering to better serve the pharmaceutical industry in Latin America.

Outcome

Nemera’s combination of a winning strategy and strong sales execution resulted in the business achieving over 12% annual revenue growth from 2014 to 2018, while our support to help optimise operations improved group EBITDA margin by almost 50%, growing at almost 25% YOY.

Following Nemera’s achievements, Montagu reinvested in the business in 2019, alongside new partner Astorg. The business’ renewed strategy focuses on organic and acquisitive growth, with an emphasis on strengthening the core business, developing new technological capabilities and services and expanding reach geographically.

Since our reinvestment Nemera has acquired two strategic bolt-ons including Insight Product Development (since rebranded and relaunched as the Company’s combined development arm, “Insight Innovation Center”) expanding Nemera’s service capabilities by enabling the business to pursue opportunities from multiple pre-production design phases, and Copernicus, a Polish business specialising in the development and manufacturing of injection devices, strengthening Nemera’s proprietary product offering and establishing an operations footprint in Eastern Europe.