We have a long tradition of designing, developing and manufacturing high-precision delivery devices for the healthcare and consumer & industrial markets. Building on our core competence of plastics injection molding and our in-depth automation expertise, we have expanded from industrial applications into the Dental, Drug Delivery, Surgery and Beauty market segments. In each of our segments, we have identified profitable and resilient niche markets with long-term growth, supported by secular trends such as a growing middle class, aging populations, increased urbanization, homecare and sustainability.
Innovative, high-precision delivery devices in attractive end markets
We believe that we benefit from long-standing customer relationships and positive macro trends in the end markets we address, which we expect to provide us with significant growth opportunities as we expand our target markets.
We are a lean, innovative and customer-centric solutions provider and aim to further exploit our strategic setup across all market segments by leveraging our industrial DNA — creating synergies and scale through knowledge sharing across the medmix group.
In particular, we strive to leverage early trends and best practices across market segments. For example, sustainability has been a strong focus in our Beauty market segment for several years. More recently, we have drawn upon this experience to deploy sustainable practices across other market segments, including Industry and Drug Delivery. Read more about our sustainability commitments in the next focus story.
M&A focus on healthcare and geographic expansion
Our focused M&A strategy will remain in line with our established track record over the past 15 years. We concentrate on acquiring companies that offer a strong strategic fit with our existing product offering and allow us to expand our global presence.
In Healthcare, we are looking to drive growth through an active M&A pipeline, focusing on small to medium-sized companies serving adjacent markets that have strong IP and are leaders in their niche. We will also consider add-on acquisitions to extend our Healthcare product offering, as well as acquisitions of new platforms that share the injection molding and liquid handling expertise with the rest of our portfolio. Read more about our technology approach in the business review sections.
Perspectives from Jennifer Dean, CFO
The spin-off and listing were not the only challenges medmix teams mastered in 2021. There was also the pandemic in its second year. In this section, Jennifer Dean, medmix CFO, shares her perspective on leading through this demanding time.
My reflections on medmix becoming a publicly listed company
Working towards delivering the spin-off of medmix from Sulzer offered the team a unique challenge. One that represented a significant shift in our ways of working and our capabilities. The spin-off has transformed us from being a non-core business within a large flow-control company to a lean and agile company focused on serving customers with our innovative technology in high-precision delivery devices for use in dental, medical, pharmaceutical, industrial and consumer applications. As we started to communicate our intent and vision to become a stand-alone listed company, the positive response of our customers and from investors further boosted the anticipation of our teams globally. There was a sense of purpose and excitement from “coming of age” to live our vision as a global leader in our markets. And working closely with colleagues and teams across Sulzer during the spin-off process has allowed us to develop new skills and ready ourselves as a stand-alone company. It has been a career defining opportunity for me and I am proud of what we have achieved.
Sustainable growth strategy
We have an attractive growth strategy across all five segments, where we will continue to invest in research and development, organic scale-up and efficiency projects, as well as in focused M&A activities. We are not starting from scratch and can leverage our successful track record while in Sulzer. medmix will maintain discipline in our capital allocation to drive growth while ensuring strong financial fundamentals. In 2021 we communicated our intention to raise capital to strengthen our balance sheet and to ensure a sustainable capital structure immediately after the spin-off. Our offering in September was well received by the market and we raised around CHF 300 million. Following this, we also successfully refinanced our pre spin-off intercompany loan from Sulzer with external bank financing. With our capital structure well anchored and further boosted by strong profitability and free cash flow generation in 2021, we finished the year with a leverage ratio (i.e. net debt to EBITDA) below one. All positive elements to make a CFO smile. So, I see us well positioned on our new journey as medmix.
“Preparing and executing a spin-off is an incredibly exciting, potentially a once-in-a-career event. I am incredibly proud of our teams and the value we have delivered together for our customers and stakeholders.”
Jennifer Dean
Chief Financial Officer
Our spin-off journey — lots of progress and nearing the finish line
As a division of Sulzer, we had operated through separate legal entities and sites which allowed us to achieve a seamless transition when becoming a global stand-alone company as medmix. This means that we can continue to serve the needs of our customers without any transitional impacts from the spin-off. The areas which medmix needs to build are mainly functions in the corporate center such as HR, finance, IT, legal and communications. In this part of our journey, we are grateful to be supported by Sulzer through a transition services agreement. Since the spin-off, we have already made good progress in setting up our corporate teams including a jointly developed transfer plan with Sulzer, and we therefore expect to become self-sufficient within this year. We achieved a very smooth year-end closing for 2021 despite having been only listed for five months. This speaks volumes about the tremendous dedication, teamwork and experience of the corporate colleagues working in both companies. Looking forward, we are excited at the opportunity before us. Navigating the pandemic and executing on the spin-off have once again confirmed my belief that it’s people who drive results. The Executive Committee and I will be channeling the momentum of our teams to shape an inspiring and inclusive future for the company.
