Deregulation as Deal-Flow Gold Rush

"This marked the beginning of a twenty-year period of deregulation in traditionally protected industries such as telecom, TV, energy, rail traffic, education, healthcare, elder care, and pharmacies. No other country was as aggressive as Sweden in breaking up monopolies, and this unexpectedly created lucrative opportunities for private equity firms. Here, operations with dominant market positions and stable revenues were sold; it was like a dream. Thus, a gigantic transfer of wealth occurred, as profits quickly multiplied in the companies once they were privately owned. In many state-owned companies at that time, there were no incentives at all to influence revenues and costs, which meant the potential was great."

"Behind the center-right government’s decision to deregulate were both ideological reasons and goals to increase accessibility, improve service, and lower prices. Sweden was one of the last Western countries to deregulate its pharmacies. Perhaps it was a natural development, even though critics’ opinion was “if it ain’t broken, don’t fix it.” But neither form of operation is a given; the pharmacy monopoly was introduced in 1970, before which pharmacists were free entrepreneurs as they are now."

"If the telecom market became EQT’s and IK’s early hunting grounds after deregulation, then the pharmacy market became Altor’s, even though it did not offer such quick money. In November 2009, Altor bought the largest independent pharmacy group, with 2,000 employees at 200 pharmacies, and named it Apotek Hjärtat. Since then, they have added another seventy or so pharmacies to their group. The market leader is Apoteket AB, which is still state-owned."