Ontario vitamin-seller Jamieson Laboratories has bought fast-growing Burnaby-based women’s nutritional supplement purveyor Lorna Vanderhaeghe Health Solutions Inc. (LVHS) in a transaction that highlights demand for health products as the population ages.
All of LVHS’s 27 employees will keep their jobs and manufacturing will continue to be done in Burnaby, Lorna Vanderhaeghe told Business in Vancouver June 19.
“We needed to partner with somebody who had more resources – someone who was bigger. This acquisition was all about growth and getting to more people and expanding our market reach, said Vanderhaeghe, who will stay based in Vancouver and active in the company.
“My name and face are both on the bottles. I have no intention of going anywhere.”
Vanderhaeghe founded the company in 2001 and renamed it in 2010. Profit Magazine ranked LVHS as the 43rd fastest growing company in Canada in 2013 with a 1,427% growth rate between 2008 and 2013.
The company generated nearly $8 million in 2013 and that growth has kept apace in 2014.
Vanderhaeghe told BIV that January’s sales were 90% more than in the same month in 2013.
Virtually all of LVHS’s revenue comes from selling supplements to aid women’s health although a trickle of revenue also comes from selling videos, books and live presentations.
“We’ve got 50% of the female population in Canada that are older than 50 years,” Vanderhaeghe said. “They have a lot of health needs.
Jamieson, which was founded in 1922, is one of Canada’s oldest and largest vitamin sellers. It has 600 staff across Canada, about $250 million in annual sales and was acquired in January by U.S. private equity firm CCMP Capital Advisors LLC in a transaction estimated to be worth more than $300 million.
