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The Nucare buying group could prove an attractive investment option if or when it comes on to the market. By city writer Ken Clay
Not all the companies starting life under the Business Expansion Scheme (BES) initiative have succeeded. They were small and small companies are traditionally seen as being at the riskier end of the financial spectrum.
However, one of more successful BES acorns now growing among community pharmacists is Nucare.
From a start-up capital base of #500,000 in 1993, turnover at the `buying club' has increased from just over #1 million in the first financial period to around #7.1m in the year to September, 1997. Pre-tax profit in that year stood at #853,000.
Figures for the year to September, 1998 were not available when we went to press, but were expected to be similar after a year of consolidation and directional development. Having expanded by ploughing back profits in its first five years, the company now has to decide how to proceed. Options include raising capital via a stock market quotation for existing and new, additional shares or offering member pharmacists new shares for subscription.
Ancestry
Nucare traces its ancestry back to a loose association of mainly Kenyan Asian pharmacists known as the...