45.6 million! The old brand Derentang plans to sell 69 stores

Mondo Finance Updated on 2024-02-23

On February 8, the day before Chinese New Year's Eve 2024, Kenzhijia suddenly made an announcement:

On February 8, 2024, Sichuan Jianzhijia, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Company, and Derentang, the counterparty of the transaction, entered into an agreement to acquire the store assets and operating interests of 69 pharmacies of Derentang for an amount of RMB45.6 million.

Screenshot from: **Times.

The acquirer, Jianzhijia, said that through this asset acquisition, Sichuan Jianzhijia further strengthened its intensive distribution in Chengdu, Sichuan, and entered a new area to achieve the purpose of rapid distribution, market share, and shortening the investment period.

After the acquisition, the scale of Jianzhijia's stores in Sichuan has increased from 263 in September 2023 to more than 300, and Chengdu's regional brand influence and competitiveness have been enhanced.

"Century-old brand" and "post-95 rookie".

"Derendo" has a long history of nearly 100 years. "Derentang", formerly known as "Darentang", was founded in 1927, the founder of Beijing Tong Ren Tang Le surnamed Daren came to the southern section of Chunxi Road in Chengdu, Sichuan Province to open a branch, because the Tong Ren Tang brand and "Chengdu Chen Tong Ren Tang" have the same name, therefore, with "Da Ren Tang" opened a store, in 1948, "Da Ren Tang" was renamed "Deren Tang".

Compared with Derentang, Jianzhijia is more like a "young man", and on December 28, 2023, Jianzhijia ushered in its 25th birthday.

According to the data, Jianzhijia originated in Kunming, Yunnan Province, is a pharmaceutical retail chain enterprise rooted in the southwest region, founded by Lan Bo, who was the financial manager of Shenzhen Neptune Chain Pharmacy and the vice president of national sales.

Source: China Non-prescription Drug Association

At the end of 2023, Jianzhijia also plans to spend 13.7 billion yuan to acquire 100% equity of Ruile Bang Renjia Pharmacy, involving 190 pharmacies.

According to the "Rice Retail Center", after the completion of the two acquisitions of Sichuan Derentang and Chongqing Ruilebang, the number of Jianzhijia's stores in Sichuan, Chongqing and Guizhou will reach 1,143, becoming the area with the largest number of stores after the Yunnan base camp.

On September 21, 2023, Jianzhijia announced at the semi-annual results briefing that Jianzhijia's performance in the first half of the year maintained rapid growth, which is important related to its adherence to the store expansion strategy of "self-construction + acquisition".

Jian Zhijia once said that in the next three years, it will promote the strategy of "taking the central city as the core and penetrating downward", consolidate the leading position of the two profit centers in Yunnan and Hebei by strengthening regional penetration and sinking, and promote the rapid breakthrough and development of Sichuan, Chongqing, Guizhou and Liaoliao regions. In terms of medium and long-term goals, Jianzhijia has identified the market as a key region such as the Yangtze River Delta, the Yangtze River Economic Belt, and the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, with rapid economic development and continuous population accumulation, and continues to promote the company's transformation from a regional chain enterprise to a national chain enterprise.

The old and the new alternate, behind the acquisition

According to the official website of the "Sichuan Derentang Pharmaceutical Chain", the company has a total of more than 500 direct, franchised and holding outlets in the provinceAmong them, there are more than 170 directly operated stores in Chengdu. Its shareholder, Chengdu Borui Economic Development, a listed company under Chengdu Media Group, is a state-owned shareholding company.

Despite years of development, Derentang has developed into a diversified large-scale group company integrating pharmaceutical retail chain, pharmaceutical wholesale, production and processing of traditional Chinese medicine beverages, medical treatment, imperial food and catering, and even involves integrated development businesses such as health education industry, pension industry, culture and art industry, green agriculture industry and financial industry. This time, Derentang suddenly launched dozens of pharmacies, which attracted the attention of many industry insiders, or marked that the competitive landscape of pharmacies in Chengdu is changing at an accelerated pace.

According to the latest data from the State Food and Drug Administration, as of the end of 2022, the total number of retail pharmacies in Sichuan Province is 49,876, the number of retail chain stores is 42,973, and the number of retail stores is 6,903, with a chain rate of 86%, and the number of chain stores and chains ranks among the top two in the country.

At the same time, foreign chain stores continue to pour into Sichuan. In the 2022-2023 provincial top 20 list of Sichuan chain pharmacies in Minenet,The top three on the list have been covered by three large chains outside the province, namely Yixintang, Gaoji and Quanyi HealthThe local chain representatives are Zhenghexiang and Xinglin, which are in the first place.

Fourth, fifth; The sixth place is the protagonist of the Jianzhijia acquisition case - Sichuan Derentang.

Taking Gaoji Medical as an example, public data shows that it has about 2,000 directly operated stores in Sichuan Province, covering Chengdu, Yibin, Panzhihua, Leshan, Guangyuan, Ya'an, Guang'an, Luzhou and other cities. According to the data of Zhenghexiang's official website, there are more than 1,000 self-operated stores, which is a rare chain with IPO strength in Sichuan, and the official website of Xinglin shows that the number of corporate stores is more than 400, which is far lower than the number of stores of Gaoji Medical.

Some time ago, aboutPhysical pharmacies are more expensive than online purchasesThe topic has attracted attention, and the highlight behind it is:In the era of vigorous e-commerce economy, the traditional process of selling drugs has been completely broken by the Internet, and physical pharmacies are facing a greater impact from e-commerce.

In the context of the further development of Internet e-commerce drug sales, will the market pattern of Sichuan physical pharmacies be rewritten after this merger and acquisition?

Materials**: Minai Retail Center, First Pharmacy Caizhi, etc.

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