FRANKFURT (Reuters) - The founder of German generic drugmaker Dermapharm has short-listed two buyout groups in the bidding for the company, three people familiar with the matter said.
BC Partners, which has offered about 1.1 billion euros ($1.3 billion) for Dermapharm, is seen as being in the lead to buy the privately-held group, while talks with Nordic Capital are also ongoing, the people said.
BC Partners, Nordic and Dermapharm declined to comment.
Dermapharm's owner and chief executive Wilhelm Beier last year appointed advisory boutique Ferber to find a buyer for the company, which makes skin disease treatments, allergy drugs, dietary supplements and suntan lotion.
Private equity groups such as PAI, Cinven (CINV.UL), Advent and Carlyle (O:CG) had also submitted bids valuing the company at more than 1 billion euros including debt.
Dermapharm is expected to post earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation of less than 100 million euros this year on sales of roughly 500 million, people familiar with the sale have said in the past.
They had added that private equity groups viewed the generics portfolio as attractive but cared less about the group's business in the so-called parallel trade of drugs, which they regard has having little growth potential.
Some healthcare distribution firms make money by re-labelling and re-importing specific drugs from a country were these products sell at lower prices, without the explicit consent of the drugmaker.