Permobil Acquires Lifestand France

This acquisition comes as no surprise and fits not only with the Permobil value added product line but establishes a larger footprint in the French market - a market so far largely shunned by other large Nordic players like Etac and Handicare. This represents another investment for Nordic Capital, relatively new owner of Permobil.

It also continues the buying spree of the “Homecare Vikings” which we wrote about two years ago and at the beginning of this year when Handicare had just completed two acquisitions within months of each other.

There is no question that “stand up” chairs, both manual and powered, offer higher margins to manufacturers. It is also true that this market segment is maturing with the mainstream large manufacturers having entered the market in the past year or two - better late than never.

Could we be heading back to those heady days in the mid 90’s when now market leaders Invacare and Sunrise went on big buying acquisition drives, or are the Scandinavian homecare vikings being more selective?

Here is what Hans Bergh, CEO at Permobil says:

As part of its international development strategy in the field of specialist medical equipment for the handicapped community, PERMOBIL has just carried out the acquisition of the French company LIFESTAND, situated in Lyon.
LIFESTAND, which was founded in 1978, specialises in the design and manufacture of « stand-up » wheelchairs. These wheelchairs, which can be operated manually, semi-electrically or fully electrically, enable a disable person to stand upright.
The company, which has a staff of 30 people, markets its products worldwide, with 80 % of sales into export markets. It has a subsidiary in both Germany and Belgium.

Annual sales exceeds 8M Euros, with good profitability.
This transaction strengthens PERMOBIL’s position in a key, potentially high growth, market in which it is already present with its powered wheelchairs !

“This acquisition gives a great opportunity to develop even further our position in this field thanks to LIFESTAND’s full gamut of top of the range « stand-up » wheelchairs, which cover all pathologies”, says PERMOBILS CEO Hans Bergh

For LIFESTAND, this merger with such a well-established group will enable it to widen its distribution network, particularly in the United States.

For more information :
www.permobil.com
www.lifestand.eu

It will be interesting to see the integration strategy of this Swedish and French company.