Sale earns a 4x return – Fytexia’s soaring top and bottom-line growth is set to continue in new partnership with Associated British Foods.

Transatlantic private equity healthcare specialist ArchiMed announces the sale of health ingredients developer Fytexia to diversified food, ingredients and retail group, Associated British Foods, a FTSE 100 company. The transaction – which sees Fytexia join the ABF Ingredients division – earns ArchiMed’s inaugural MED I fund four times its investment. Following Fytexia’s sale, MED I retains its rank as the best performing buyout fund in the world across all sectors for the 2014 vintage, according to Preqin data. MED I has returned four and a half times invested capital to limited partners to date. Its total return – including four realized and five remaining investments – is seven times invested capital.

Working hand-in-hand with management since buying Fytexia in 2016, ArchiMed has built it into a category leader in botanic and propolis-based polyphenols through senior level recruitment (commercial, board, finance, production, R&D), multiplication of clinical studies, product diversification, North American sales expansion and targeted acquisition. In 2021, using its global MedTalents® network (ArchiMed-associated senior healthcare professionals who identify, facilitate and advise on deals and counsel portfolio companies), ArchiMed sourced and executed Fytexia’s transformational acquisition of Milan, Italy-based B Natural – a leader in propolis-based polyphenols – boosting sales some 40 percent.

Under ArchiMed’s ownership, total annual Fytexia sales growth has risen from the single digits to close to 30 percent for the past four years. Profits have risen four-fold over the same period.

“Our partnership with Fytexia is an example of the whole being greater than sum of the parts,” says ArchiMed partner, Robin Filmer-Wilson.  “We put our skills in healthcare business development and M&A at the service of talented management teams looking to accelerate growth into the long-term. With their expertise, global reach and scale, ABF is the perfect relay partner for Fytexia’s continued expansion in this burgeoning sector.”

Businesses previously sold by ArchiMed’s MED I include healthcare ingredients group HIS, for an annualized return of over 400 percent; dental operator Primo, for three times investment; and gene and cell therapy technology specialist Polyplus-transfection for almost 70 times investment.