Fulcrum, a founder focused private equity firm from Chennai recently announced a partial exit from leading Indian dermatology products company Curatio Healthcare. The equity company is selling a portion of its stake to ChrysCapital which is an Indian focused investment firm possessing around $3 billion of assets under their wing.
Although the exact amount of the deal remained unrevealed, Fulcrum received a cash return of 15 times the capital they invested and an Internal Ratio of Return (IRR) striking at 40%.
This is already the second partial exit of Fulcrum from Curatio. Back in 2015, Fulcrum sold an important portion of their stakes in the dermatology products company to Sequoia and received 6 times the capital they invested.
Fulcrum first became associated with Curatio in 2005 when they bought a majority stake as an early stage investor. Accompanied with a vast sectoral knowledge and expertise in the field, the equity firm helped Curatio increase its gross sales from Rs 60 crore in 2013 to Rs 124 crore in 2017 by refining their method of operating, the quality of their product and improving their productivity.
On Fulcrum’s second partial exit from Curatio, Krishna Ramanathan, Managing Partner of the former, said, “Fulcrum invests in early growth companies in pharmaceuticals and healthcare sectors with over $4 million turnover. The current deal is yet another testament to our approach that remaining sector focused and picking a majority stake in early-growth companies with sound business fundamentals can result in transactions that yield attractive returns.”
Fulcrum is an experienced private equity investor firm that specializes in Pharmaceutics, Healthcare and Consumer sectors. Having made over 15 investments so far with 7 profitable exits, Fulcrum is having a perfect record as investor generating superior returns. As such, they are now positioned among the leading performing funds in India.
This year, Fulcrum exited two more companies, most notably, Specsmaker, which is among South India’s biggest optical chains and resulted in 69% IRR and Manna Foods, a Health foods Company operating in Chennai and bearing 38% IRR. If fully sold, both exits will return 70% of the entire investment.
Curatio Healthcare is a top Indian pharmaceutical company, which operates with 500 employees, reaching over 20,000 doctors all over India with a particular focus on Dermatologists, Pediatricians, and Gynecologists. Their leading product, Tedibar now boasts Rs 35 crore in sales and has become the most prescribed medicine for atopic dermatitis in infants in India. Curatio also operates internationally in Sri Lanka, Nepal and Philippines.
Commenting on the partnership with Fulcrum, Director of Curatio Healthcare, G. K. Ramani, said, “That Fulcrum stays invested since 2005. Its capabilities and a niche sector focus helped us to scale multifold and create significant value for our investors. With Fulcrum divesting and helping us bring Sequoia and ChrysCapital on-board, we are focus on our ambitions of growing into a top dermatology product company in India that provides innovative solutions to our patients.”