Freedom to develop on own terms
The family-owned company Walki Medical was formed in 2005 by Tuula Virtanen, who successfully developed the company to become one of Finland’s leading distributors of supplies for health and medical care. In 2019, Walki Medical was acquired by OptiGroup and became part of an international distributor Group.
Walki Medical was on the threshold of a generational shift and was searching for a new platform for the company.
“Over the years, we have rejected several candidates and postponed the difficult decision to sell. We were uncertain whether these buyers genuinely understood our business and respected our corporate culture,” Tuula Virtanen.
When Tuula Virtanen was contacted by OptiGroup in 2019, mutual trust was established. The owner felt a large amount of security in handing over their life’s work to OptiGroup in the knowledge that Walki Medical and its employees were in good hands. OptiGroup’s decentralised governance model has entailed a large amount of freedom for the company to develop on the basis of its own conditions, while Walki Medical has contributed valuable industry expertise to OptiGroup. The architect of the successful acquisition was Perttu Levijärvi, Managing Director of VeliMark. Under his management, the company’s entrepreneurial spirit was retained after onboarding, which was a major success factor for business development in 2020.
The company, with its solid position and strong brand reputation, combined with profitability and growth potential, matched many of OptiGroup’s established acquisition criteria. From OptiGroup’s perspective, Walki Medical was perfectly suited to the Group’s growth agenda.
Walki Medical Oy
Net sales: EUR 13 million
Number of employees: 12
Head office: Valkeakoski, Finland
Founded: 2005
Acquired by OptiGroup: 2019
CEO on the date of acquisition: Tuula Virtanen