Continue to Remain Opportunistic For Acquisitions: Sun Pharma

New Delhi : Keen on inorganic expansion, Sun Pharma has said it is looking for targets that are "well managed" unlike the acquisition of Ranbaxy which continues to take significant time of the senior management.

"We continue to remain opportunistic for acquisitions. As on, since Ranbaxy continues to take significant time for senior management, we are not looking at buying businesses where we will have to spend a lot of time in managing," Sun Pharma Managing Director Dilip Shanghvi told analysts in a conference call.

So the company continues to look for opportunities which are well managed and which can either operate as a standalone business or businesses which will not require significant amount of management involvement, he added.

When asked about the size of the deal the company was looking at for the acquisitions, Shanghvi said: "I think we are a conservative company. So if we understand the business, we would potentially look at larger acquisition. If we do not fully understand the business, then it has to be a reasonably sized acquisition."

"We would not make a very large acquisition in a business which we do not fully understand," he added.

Shanghvi said the process of integrating Ranbaxy with Sun Pharma has commenced with a view to ensure business momentum and drive value creation.

"We continue to target synergy benefits of USD 250 million in the third year post closure," he added.

The merger between Sun and Ranbaxy achieved closure towards the end of March 2015.

"The Ranbaxy merger closure has taken more time than originally envisaged. We have recently commenced the implementation of the integration process," Shanghvi said.

In April, 2014, Sun Pharma had announced it would acquire troubled rival Ranbaxy in an all-stock transaction worth USD 4 billion that includes USD 800 million debt.

The merger created India's largest and the world's fifth largest drugmaker.