Torrent in association with Fortress Investment Group and Greater Pacific Capital for Merck bid

The partners of Torrent Pharmaceuticals, in its bid to acquire Merck’s generics business unit, have come to light. New York-based private equity and hedge fund manager Fortress Investment Group and London-based private equity player Greater Pacific Capital, in association with Torrent Pharma, are close to bagging the over $2 bn-worth global generics business of Merck. This consortium and Israeli pharma company Teva may be the only two left in the fray with the other two global pharma majors Mylan and Actavis having dropped out of the race.

Fortress Investment Group has $30 bn in assets under management. This New York-headquartered group is largely into the businesses of private equity and hedge funds management. The private equity business of Fortress Investment Group manages approximately $17.5 bn of assets under management.

The other private equity firm, Greater Pacific Capital based at London, is a much smaller player with under $1 bn assets under management currently. Greater Pacific’s CEO and founder partner is Ketan Patel who was previously a managing director in the investment banking division at Goldman Sachs, where he founded the Goldman Sachs Strategic Group, a think tank at Goldman Sachs. Greater Pacific Capital invests primarily in equity or equity-related securities in public and private companies in India and China.

If this deal were to come through, it would be one of the biggest by an Indian company in the pharmaceutical sector. Torrent Pharma will have a minority stake while a big chunk of the funding will be done by Fortress Capital. If this consortium wins the bid then Torrent Pharma will manage the entire generics business, while the private equity players will be financial investors.

Read The Economic Times article.

Torrent Pharma bids $5-6 bn for Merck's generics business; Ranbaxy pulls out

Two surprising developments have taken place with the Merck deal. Ahmedabad-based Torrent Pharmaceuticals has reportedly emerged as one of the aggressive bidders for German pharma major Merck’s generics business. Torrent has valued Merck Generics at a whopping $5-6 bn. Torrent has made the bid with the help of private equity funds. With this, Torrent joins the league of global pharma giants like Teva, Mylan Laboratories, Novartis and Actavis who are in vying for Merck's generics business. At the home turf, it is pitted against pharma companies Cipla and Ranbaxy.

Also, it has been learnt that Ranbaxy is pulling out of Merck bid on account of concerns of over-valuation. Ranbaxy was being advised by Goldman Sachs and Citigroup on the deal.