Speculations have been going on for several years. On Friday, it becomes a reality when Apotea enters the Stockholm Stock Exchange.
According to founder Pär Svärdson, it's despite economic uncertainty and market fluctuations the right time for Apotea:
I don't think it's good to do it when the market is at its peak. It doesn't become good for existing owners, but you should enter at a "fair market", which is best for both new and old owners, he says to TT.
Among the investors are heavy names like the H&M family's investment company Ramsbury Invest. The hope from Svärdson's side is that small savers will also be attracted to invest in a company they actually have a relationship with.
You can go from being a customer to becoming a shareholder or the opposite. By ordering goods from us, you can form your own opinion about the company. It's harder if you, for example, think about buying shares in a manufacturing company, he says.
Great interest
The question is, however, how many or rather how few shares will end up with small savers? It only took 90 minutes before the listing was oversubscribed, which is a clear indication of interest. More than half of the 32.4 million shares are also reserved for six major investors, including Ramsbury.
The remaining shares will then be distributed, and those who are willing to subscribe to shares for at least 1.2 million kronor are considered institutional investors and have priority. Employees at Apotea are also prioritized and have priority to shares for approximately 30,000 kronor.
Double sales
In the prospectus, the listing is sold based on the company having a 40 percent market share and intending to double its sales within five years. Already now, extreme amounts of goods are being shipped out from the warehouse outside Uppsala, so large that it could accommodate 1,000 buses.
Now during Black Week, we have over 80,000 orders per day that we send out, and they contain a total of 400,000 items, says Svärdson.
Unlike many other e-commerce companies, such as in the fashion and clothing industry, Apotea does not suffer from the challenge of returns. According to Pär Svärdson, it is a very small part, 0.5 percent, of the goods that are returned.
There are no plans to open physical stores, according to the CEO:
I think it involves quite a few problems to have physical pharmacies. It's not like people from, for example, Uppsala would travel to that store instead.
Online pharmacy Apotea is now listed on the stock exchange.
The subscription price is set at 58 kronor per share, which means a total stock market value of approximately 6 billion kronor.
The company was founded in connection with the deregulation of the pharmacy industry in Sweden after taking over the majority of the former Familjeapoteket. The launch took place in the autumn of 2012.
The company is now Sweden's largest online pharmacy with a market share of around 9 percent of the total pharmacy market. Online, the market share is over 40 percent.
The company has around 3 million customers and has a range of over 52,000 items.
The company has simultaneously been in trouble on several occasions after reports of work environment problems at the warehouse in Morgongåva outside Uppsala.
