Wesfarmers drops $20million on deal to sell Pharmacydirect.com.au back to chemists
A group of chemists associated with the Terry White franchise has paid a reputed $20million for a business said to be Australia's largest online seller of pharmacy products - PharmacyDirect.com.au.
The seller is the Wesfarmers owned Coles Group, and specifically its subsidiary company - Now.com.au Pty Ltd.
Just why Wesfarmers is selling the business is unclear, although one report suggested that the Perth based conglomerate was never much interested in the business.
Certainly, if the $20million figure is correct, it is less than half the $48million Coles paid back in 2006.
And Wesfamers may be just deciding to cut its losses.
In any event Australia’s Pharmacy Guild has welcomed the sale, which is due to be settled next month.
Guild President Kos Sclavos said the sale vindicated its legal action in the NSW Supreme Court challenging Coles legal right to own a pharmacy business.
“If the Guild had not urgently committed to devote significant funds, by way of legal costs, to challenge the acquisition by the Coles group, a large pharmacy business would have remained in the hands of a supermarket chain – an outcome not in the best interests of the provision of quality pharmacy services.”
Sclavos told Pharmacy News that supermarkets shouldn’t be allowed to appear to provide the same services as health professionals.
"When the biggest-selling product in a supermarket is a cigarette brand, and the biggest supplier is a cigarette company, the last thing they should be doing is being in the health professionals space," he said.
Former Queensland Liberal leader, Terry White, told the Age that he believes online distribution of drugs will be a big part of the industry’s future.
“We've been trying to get our online business going for years, and we haven't been, frankly, very successful at it, principally because we didn't have a facility
and we had a limited range of product we could make available." Mr White said
The new owners of PharmacyDirect are said to be seven pharmacist members of the Terry White chemists advisory board.
They’ve bought the business through a company they jointly own known as RX Direct Pty Ltd.
Whether or not they succeed in growing the business will be intriguing to watch.
It seems that PharmacyDirect may not have prospered during Coles ownership.
When Coles bought it PharmacyDirect was and turning over more than $40 million a year.
According to the Age, however, the business is now turning over around $35million a year.
www.pharmacydirect.com.au
www.theage.com.au
www.pharmacynews.com.au
www.wesfarmers.com.au/our-businesses/coles.html
| 
