Dentalpro aims to double its offices within five years, and is preparing to close 2023 exceeding 250 million. This is the plan of the group which, in just over a decade, has become the first in Italy in the dental sector and the seventh in the wider field of private healthcare. As CEO Michel Cohen explains, Italy still offers the best prospects for consolidation for the future, because “our country is still behind in this area, while large dental groups already exist abroad, they are nothing new ».
And in fact Dentalpro follows the changes of trend in the healthcare field and, in particular, in the dental sector. Italy has always seen the prevalence of small practices of professionals, known personally by patients and less visible in city centres. Dentalpro, in the wake of what is already happening abroad, has begun to open branches with evident, recognizable brands, even in shopping centres, making the activity visible to citizens and, «thanks to economies of scale – adds Cohen – we are able to give performance with very innovative devices on average with 15% lower prices». Born in 2010, it now has one million patients throughout Italy.
In April 2015, the US fund Summit Partners acquired 60% of the shares; in 2016 the group therefore strengthened with two acquisitions, the Giovanni Bona group and Dentadent, reaching the first 100 million in turnover. Then in 2017 Bc Partners, an American private equity fund, took over the majority, bringing DentalPro to 112 offices. Finally, in 2021 there will be 260 offices, in 16 regions, and revenues will exceed 200 million
An exponential growth that in part derives from the novelty in the Italian panorama. In fact, here the dental market is worth 9 billion but is still very fragmented, therefore organized groups can still have growth potential because they represent only 2.4% in terms of number of structures (928 centers against 38,400 traditional practices) and about 8% of turnover.
Household spending on dental services, according to Key-Stone, now reaches 9.1 billion. In Europe, on the other hand, the incidence of organized centers rises to 20-30%, and it is this percentage that Dentalpro also looks to in Italy. After small expansion attempts in Poland and Germany, the company has revised its plan after the Covid confirming that Italy will still be the center of investments.