Asper-backed group snags 12 pharmacies

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This article was published 11/10/2014 (4278 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

THE pharmacy business just got a little more crowded.

Amenity Health Care LP, a Winnipeg company that has David Asper as the lead investor, has made an initial splash into the growing sector with the purchase of 12 independent pharmacies in Manitoba and Saskatchewan, most of them in rural locations.

And there’s more to come.

“There are huge growth opportunities in terms of potential acquisitions. We’re trying to knit together a network of independent pharmacies where we can take advantage of buying power,” Asper said.

“From what we’ve experienced, there is also a lot of interest from capital markets, both with equity and debt, which suggests we’re on the right track.”

Various opportunities have been presented to the group from across the country, but Western Canada is the company’s immediate focus, said Dalbir Bains, Amenity’s CEO.

“We’re going west. We’re going to be announcing some more acquisitions in Saskatchewan soon and then in Alberta and B.C.,” he said.

Amenity’s business model involves purchasing independent pharmacies in underserviced communities and operating them under their longtime names.

“We’ve taken a bottom-up view of how we make changes. We pride ourselves on trying to take the best of what independent pharmacies have done — being grassroots, service-oriented and knowing customers’ names — and harnessing that with the benefits of scale and technology,” he said.

Bains, who worked for several years with Asper at Canwest Global Communications, said the company will focus on its niche and likely avoid tackling the big-box players such as Shoppers Drug Mart and Rexall PharmaPlus.

“The best place to spend our time is where health-service gaps are most pronounced,” he said.

One of Amenity’s goals is to create more health-care options in its pharmacies.

For example, it recently opened an express care clinic at Pine Pharmacy in Pine Falls, where a nurse practitioner provides services when the local clinics are closed.

“Instead of a mother whose child has an ear infection having to go to Winnipeg for care, we’re providing an additional service here,” he said.

While Asper is new to the pharmacy industry, he is no stranger to the local business community.

He first made his mark as a lawyer, helping to exonerate David Milgaard in one of the highest-profile wrongful-conviction cases in Canadian history, then as an executive at Canwest and a professor at the law school at the University of Manitoba. He has also been an active player on the private equity scene.

“I’m an investor, a business person, and when you look at sectors with sustainability to them, health care is one of them. It made sense to me,” he said.

geoff.kirbyson@freepress.mb.ca