Founder of cosmetic firm Q-Med sells shares for 500 million dollar.

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Swiss specialty dermatology firm Galderma Pharma -- a joint venture between L’Oreal and Nestle SA -- has launched a bid to acquire Swedish cosmetic treatment firm Q-Med.

The deal would make the Swedish company’s founder Bengt Ågerup a rich man, potentially pocketing as much as 3.5 billion kronor ($500 million). Still, some analysts think the bid is too low.

Q-Med makes and sells high-quality medical implants for aesthetic and medical use, something that would add to Galderma’s current portfolio and create synergies.
“The combined company offers both commercial and geographic expansion opportunities,” said Humberto Antunes, the chief executive officer of Galderma.

Q-Med shareholders will receive 75 kronor a share cash, the Swedish company said in a statement Monday. That’s 13 percent more than the stock’s Friday closing price and 23 percent higher than 30 days ago. Bengt Ågerup has via his holding company Lyftet, which owns almost half of the Q-Med shares, accepted the offer in return for a minimum of 58.94 kronor a share in cash. That would potentially give Ågerup 2.8 – 3.5 billion kronor, according to the Direkt newswire.

"I think the bid is too low," an analyst told Reuters. "It is too low and doesn't reflect the growth profile the company has or the structural value."

But Bengt Ågerup seems to be happy to delist the company from the Stockholm exchange and get a strong owners with financial muscles.

“It is important from an industrial point of view that we get a strong partner that has muscles to be a bit more resilient than on a quarterly basis, which was our reality as a listed company in Sweden,” he told Bloomberg News, adding that he also talked to other potential buyers but “nobody else was interested at this level”.

Last year Q-Med made a pretax profit of 756 million kronor on revenue of 1.4 billion.

Q-Med rallies almost 13 percent Monday, closing at 74.75 kronor.