AddLife: strategic healthcare acquisition search
Client
AddLife ABClient Overview:
AddLife, a Stockholm-headquartered Swedish company with over a century of history, specializes in Labtech and Medtech. It delivers advanced healthcare solutions across Europe via approximately 85 subsidiaries in about 30 countries. Its extensive portfolio, including diagnostics, laboratory equipment, medical devices, and homecare solutions, supports hospitals, research institutions, and private healthcare providers.
Guided by its core values, AddLife pursues acquisition-driven growth and strategic partnerships to achieve long-term market leadership in selected Medtech and Labtech niches.This model combines the scale of a leading European Medtech & Labtech group with the agility of its entrepreneur-led subsidiaries to deliver cost-effective, high-quality healthcare solutions for both public and private healthcare providers.
The Challenge:
AddLife sought high-potential Medtech & Labtech acquisition targets in an Eastern European market, aligned with its niche, acquisition-driven M&A strategy. With support from Civitta, a longlist of well over over 6,000 companies was identified, through a structured funnel approach using healthcare market mapping, global databases, local networks, and desk research, and refined to 170+ firms for detailed commercial due diligence, financial analysis, ownership review, and portfolio validation.
The absence of comprehensive industry reports from associations and market research firms posed a significant challenge. To address this, the team relied on deep internal industrial expertise and extensive desk research conducted by locally based consultants to ensure no critical details were missed.
A further challenge was the industry’s highly specialized nature and the need for strong local market knowledge, without which it would not have been possible to provide AddLife with tailored recommendations for identifying the most suitable acquisition target.
Our Approach:
The project was carried out in three phases:
Phase I – Initial data extraction
We developed a longlist of potential targets, through a structured funnel approach using healthcare market mapping, global databases, local networks, and desk research. More precisely we:
- Extracted a full list of companies in the specific Eastern European market which are registered under specific Labtech and Medtech company codes
- Refined the list to include only active legal entities with functional websites
- Result of Phase 1 was 6,000+ entities identified
Phase II – Longlist filtering
Next, we refined the longlist by using pre-defined criteria agreed with the client, to reach a number of firms for detailed commercial due diligence, financial analysis, ownership review, and portfolio validation. With this in mind we:
- Applied revenue threshold agreed with the client to the list
- Removed companies with inadequate financial performance in the past 3-5 years based on historical financial analysis
- The result of Phase 2 was 170+ entities identified
Phase III – Shortlist
Finally, the list was further narrowed down to the top 10 acquisition targets for whom we conducted a thorough commercial deep-dive. This part of the analysis covered company size, growth perspective and business activities, with the addition of compliance and risk identification. To get to the final number of targets:
- Filtered companies were analysed and ranked based on their Financial fit (desired revenue growth and EBIT margin targets) and Strategic fit (areas of interest, specific medical brands in their portfolio, and specific equipment requirements), as well as high-level overview of Governance and Ownership KYC compliance check to identify any potential publicly available risk indicators
- Result of Phase 3 was the ranking of the top 10 acquisition targets identified ordered by their investment attractiveness for AddLife
Services Provided:
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Market intelligence collection and strategic market segments examination (through healthcare market research and Medtech & Labtech industry analysis)
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Multiple cross company data points analysis, validation, and ranking (using M&A screening methodologies and benchmarking frameworks)
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Evaluation and prioritization ranking of acquisition targets (based on financial performance, strategic fit, and investment attractiveness)
Results & Impact:
AddLife received an extensive overview of potential acquisition opportunities, along with a clearly prioritized shortlist. This included information on:
- Their financial performance;
- Product and service portfolio;
- Ownership structure;
- Key considerations for each of the top 10 companies.
Findings were cross-validated with internal company information and local healthcare market experts to ensure adequate target prioritization, resulting in a clear ranking of acquisition targets from most to least favourable for M&A decision-making.
AddLife’s top management utilized the priority list of targets to determine the subsequent course of action for the company’s expansion in the selected Eastern European market.
“The Civitta team quickly understood our needs and showed great professionalism in scoping a project to-the-point, delivering it with the highest quality. I am especially thankful for the good and open collaboration, and the great sector and market knowledge shown by the team, securing a valuable outcome for us.”
Christian Karlsson
“The project provided us with a great opportunity to support AddLife with their business operations in a very actionable manner by providing relevant and interesting acquisition targets, leveraging the expertise of our more than 130 consultants in the country, enabling AddLife to continue and spearhead its growth.”
Emanuel Skog
