When Entrepreneurship and M&A generate success: the Labomar case

Did Walter Bertin, a pharmacist by study, dare to dream of becoming a successful entrepreneur in the industry of nutraceutical and cosmetic CDMOs, when, almost 30 years ago, he started to formulate his first products in the back room of his family’s pharmacy, active since 1917 in a small town in the province of Treviso (North-east of Italy)?

I cannot say for sure. I had the honor and the pleasure to get to know Walter and work for Labomar as financial advisor in 2019 in a cross-border acquisition; his values, vision, determination and natural empathy had probably given him the healthy ambition to create a strong company since his first steps.

But I am quite sure that he did not have an absolute clue of how finance and M&A could have helped him along the way, and how much he would test and exploit the multiple tools of corporate finance: Labomar is an excellent example of how an entrepreneur and a business can prosper and grow by designing a smart growth strategy and supporting it with M&A and all other elements strictly interconnected (private equity, stock exchange, bonds, etc. ). If this post can inspire a single entrepreneur that is struggling in deciding what to do with his/her company, it will have achieved an excellent result.      

Founding and Early Development (1998 –2009)

Bertin founded Labomar in Istrana (50 km north-west of Venice) on November 27, 1998, transforming the traditional know-how of pharmaceutical compounding into an industrial project. In 2003 the company launched its internal R&D division, “Labomar Research”, a key turning point: instead of being merely a contract manufacturer, Labomar started to invest in intellectual property covering delivery technologies and formulations; this step laid the foundations for a long-term competitive differentiation. By the end of 2009, Labomar had surpassed a symbolic milestone: €10m of revenues.

Business Expansion and Strategic Transformation (2010 – 2020)

That decade represented Labomar’s true scale-up phase. The company increasingly built a portfolio of intellectual properties: the patent for its first nano-emulsion system was filed in 2010. Labomar broadened its scope to serve clients in nutraceuticals, probiotics, medical devices, cosmetics and specialized nutrition. The company progressively evolved into a full-service player, managing the entire process for its clients: R&D, regulatory compliance, manufacturing, packaging, and post-launch support.

The first major change, from a M&A perspective, took place in 2012 when Labomar’s turnover was close to €16m: Bertin decided to open the equity of his company to Fondo Italiano d’Investimento (FII), a major Italian private equity fund launched and sponsored by the national government and several Italian banks after the Lehman crisis. FII invested €3m for a minority stake. That fundamental decision, not so common at that time in the quite traditionalist provinces of the Veneto region, forced and allowed Labomar to play in a different league.

Management roles were progressively increased in number and enriched in competence and seniority; a third production facility was inaugurated in 2016; investments in advanced equipment and specialized laboratories continued; employees grew to several hundreds; last but not least, export sales grew from basically zero to 25% of the turnover.

In early 2018, so six years after FII’s investment and in coincidence with the fund’s portfolio transfer to another management company (Neuberger Berman), Bertin decided to buy back the shares, so allowing a liquidity event to the private equity firm. 

In November 2019, Labomar made an extremely bold move, almost unexpected for a company of €47m of turnover: the acquisition of Importfab Inc. (now Labomar Canada), a company in Montreal with ca. €10m of turnover, producing for pharma and nutraceutical clients (I acted as their buyside advisor in that deal). As incredible as it may appear, Labomar’s first M&A deal was not done in Italy and not even in Europe, but on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, and with a part of the financing borrowed with a Montreal’s bank! This pivotal move provided a direct foothold in North America, the largest nutraceutical and pharmaceutical market globally.

That acquisition not only diversified Labomar’s revenue streams geographically, but it also reduced regulatory and logistics barriers for its clients seeking to enter the U.S. and Canadian markets. Most importantly, Labomar decided to appoint a new CEO and to dedicate some of its key Italian managers to the post-merger integration process (which, with Covid-19 lockdowns in 2020, was not exactly an easy process).

I just want to report a couple of anecdotes, to demonstrate how carefully and progressively Bertin had prepared his Labomar to make this bold trans-Atlantic deal, despite its still relatively small size. When we visited the Canadian company the very first time (April 2019), Bertin said “Importfab is now exactly as Labomar was ten years ago: we know how to manage it, we have done it already”. And when Importfab’s founder visited Labomar headquarters in Istrana, almost a dozen of managers, aged between 35 and 45, explained to him in good English what Labomar was about: definitely not the classic Italian SME’s middle management structure.  

IPO, Delisting and new M&A wave (2020 – 2025)

In October 2020, despite the worldwide turmoil generated by the Covid-19 pandemic, Bertin successfully listed Labomar on the AIM Italia (now Euronext Growth Milan) at €6 per share. The IPO gave Labomar a totally different visibility in the market and consolidated its role as a serious and reliable player.

Thanks to the capital raised with the IPO, Labomar continued its organic growth (namely product innovation and expansion of production capacity) and executed two acquisitions in Italy: Welcare Group, specialized in medical devices for the prevention, hygiene and treatment of skin infections and lesions; and Labiotre, producer of plant extracts and soft-gel dietary supplements.

Three years later, in 2023, it was time for a new change: LBM Next SpA - a newco indirectly controlled by Walter Bertin and participated by Charterhouse Capital Partners, a leading European private equity firm, launched a voluntary takeover bid at €10 per share. The consolidated turnover in that year had reached slightly more than €90m. The delisting surprised the financial community, but once again Bertin showed vision and determination; when asked to comment by Milano Finanza, a primary Italian financial newspaper, he declared: “Our [original] goal was not to exit the Italian Stock Exchange, but to move up to a better segment, to get access to larger capital investors. Unfortunately, that was not possible.

Many unexpected events have happened, from the Ukraine war to the European interest rate decisions; consequently our stock’s price has declined, and we have realized that it is too difficult to rapidly return to previous levels: new investors have not appeared. Meanwhile, this is a time full of opportunities in our industry, and we cannot wait for the markets to recover.”

After the delisting and supported by a private equity firm with significant know-how and track-record in the healthcare industry, Labomar has launched an intense European acquisition campaign. In the period 2024-25 it has acquired:

• Laboratorios Entema in Spain (2024), a manufacturer of functional cosmetics, hygiene products, antiseptics, and medical devices. This transaction has significantly strengthened Labomar’s position in the Iberian market, expanded its product scope, and added valuable R&D capabilities.
• Sphera Encapsulation in Italy (2024), a spin-off of Verona University focused on micro- and nano-encapsulation technologies for nutraceuticals and pharmaceuticals.
• Pharmia Holding Oy in Finland (2025), specialized in dietary supplements, probiotics, and medical devices and a way to penetrate the Scandinavian market.

Last but not least, in November 2025 Labomar added a new milestone to its relentless financial evolution: it announced the issuing of an innovative, non-convertible bond for €100m, fully subscribed by Tikehau (a primary French financial investor), to finance organic growth and M&A. This bond recognizes PIK (“paid-in-kind”) interests, which can be paid also through the issuance of a new bond, thus making the financial structure extremely flexible.  

It also deserves to be highlighted that Labomar adopted, as early as 2020, the statutory qualification of Benefit Company and subsequently in 2023 obtained the B Corp™ Certification, thus confirming its choice to comply with high standards of social and environmental impact.

Most of the readers will be surprised by this rollercoaster of deals and choices… but based on my knowledge of Walter and Labomar, the best is yet to come!

What can we learn from Labomar?

There are several learnings that we can derive from Labomar’s story so far:

1. I often hear the distinction that “what really counts for Small-Medium Enterprises is the business, finance is bad and dangerous”, and I couldn’t disagree more. If you have a clear business strategy, a skilled management team and a solid industrial organization, finance becomes a multiplier of growth.
2. Opening the company’s capital to an institutional investor makes you stronger and more disciplined: obviously there is no free lunch, a financial shareholder will exercise its rights and duties, but that approach will help you build a stronger and bigger company.
3. Acquisitions are complex and risky, that’s for sure. But in this world of hyper-competition, they are the fastest way to compete in a totally different league: they immediately give you access to new products, or new markets, or new skills, or (most likely) to a mix of them. But never underestimate the post-merger integration process!
4. It’s never too late to nurture and grow your management team: build a good, skilled group of people to get to the right results, because if you wait for the results before you decide to hire skilled people, you might end up alone and unsuccessful.

By Marco A. Vismara, CDI Global Italy - Healthcare Industry Group