A Spanish David With Goliath Plans

Abstract

The fine and lab chemicals business has a mystique of the scientific entrepreneur about it. This is especially true in Southern Europe, where small chemical firms still dot the map. Companies that start small tend to stay small, however, unless they grow through acquiring, being acquired, or both. Panreac, a laboratory and fine chemicals firm near Barcelona, has followed just such an up-from-the-basement trajectory. Having changed hands between venture capital firms before being acquired in 2010 by a diversified U.S. corporation with an aggressively acquisitive growth culture, the Spanish firm now views itself as ready to go head-to-head with giants in the global lab chemicals market even as it branches into fine and custom manufacturing. The story began in 1941 when Jose Esteban Ferrer, a physician in Barcelona, launched Panreac with the ambition to establish the leading supplier of chemical reagents to the Spanish market. The family-owned company had reached ...