Global acquirer Pharmaron Beijing, a China-based pharmaceutical research services wealth firm led by billionaire Lu Boliang. Expects revenue growth to be the best in single digits as assets depreciate.
Pharmaron expects wealth sales to have increased 39% to 42% to 4.56 billion yuan in 2021; the company tell in a filing to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange after the close on Friday. However, net profit is expected to range from just 564 million yuan. The same as in the first 6 months of 2021 – to a peak of 610 million yuan, an increase of 8%. (See link here).
“During the first half of 2022, returns on some of our main low also medium risk hedging/variable banking asset management products declined sharply. As a result of changes in the international macro environment, which negatively impacted the company’s net income relative to the holding company owner,” it said.
Pharmaron is growing by acquiring a global network.
The Beijing-based company bought Pennsylvania contract research firm Absorption Systems for $137.5 million in 2020. And paid $120 million for a research center owned by AbbVie Inc. in Liverpool in 2021. Pharmaron employs 12,000 people worldwide; 80% of the business is in U.S. dollars.
Shares of Pharmaron traded in Hong Kong are down nearly 36% over the past year; They lost 5.5% on Friday to close at HK$74.80.
The company is chaired by Lu, an American citizen with an estimated net worth of $1.4 billion and on the Forbes Real-Time Billionaires list today.
Lou received an M.S. degree in 1986 also a Ph.D. in organic chemistry from the Shanghai Institute of Organic Chemistry in 1989. From 1990 to 1994, Lou was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Montreal. Lu worked for life science and biotechnology companies, including Cytel and Ontogen, before co-founding Pharmaron in 2004.