Wellnex (ASX:WNX) has completed the acquisition of Australian topical pain relief brand Pain Away for $20.85 million cash and 20 million Wellnex shares.

To support the acquisition, Wellnex, which is the owner and developer of several Australian health brands, conducted a $13.6 million pro-rata non-renounceable entitlement offer to support funding the acquisition.

Wellnex says the ‘transformative’ transaction aligns with its strategy of owning brands and intellectual property in defensive healthcare segments.

Wellnex Managing Director Zack Bozinovski says there are ‘significant’ operational efficiencies to be realised when leveraging the company’s existing infrastructure, business processes, and workforce that will boost Pain Away’s growth.

“Longer term, we are excited to utilise Wellnex’s new product development pipeline to launch Pain Away into additional category segments and geographies and believe the brand is highly complementary to Wellnex’s medicinal cannabis product launch strategy.”

“we are excited to utilise Wellnex’s new product development pipeline to launch Pain Away into additional category segments and geographies…”

Given the additional interest in Wellnex, the company has decided to undertake a follow-on two-tranche placement, under which it will issue 125.3 million shares at $0.028 to raise $3.5 million on the same terms as the previously announced entitlement offer.

The funds raised will be used to support working capital needs and expedite the growth of the company.

Privately held Barclay Pearce Capital Investment and Ord Minnett acted as Joint Lead Managers to the follow-on placement.

Further, Wellnex has enhanced its board with key Chairman and Director appointments, which will be effective from January 2024.

Jeffrey Yeh, who has over 21 years of experience in pharmaceutical sales, marketing, production, quality assurance operations, logistics, finance, and management, has been appointed as the company’s new Non-Executive Director.

Meanwhile, Andrew Vidler has been appointed as an Independent Non-Executive Director. He has 30 years of experience in retail, consumer health products, and retail pharmacy.

Mario Tascone has been appointed as Wellnex’s Non-Executive Chairman and also brings experience in the consumer health and wellness market to the company.

Tascone says: “I’m excited to be joining Wellnex as Chair and to further strengthen the board after the appointment of Jeffrey Yeh and Andrew Vidler.

As new appointments, we all look forward to ensuring the highest corporate governance and bringing our expertise to drive the business forward.”

Wellnex Life is a consumer healthcare business focused on developing, licencing, and marketing registered products and brands to customers in the growing healthcare market segment.

Images: Wellnex Life