The Lalvani family is on the brink of cashing in more than half a century of patient brand-building, with US private equity giant Bain Capital understood to be days away from sealing a near-£1 billion swoop on Vitabiotics, the UK’s largest multivitamin maker.
City sources suggest a deal valuing the family-owned group at around £900 million could be announced as early as this week, capping an auction that began in early 2025 and has run hot and cold for more than a year. Talks remain “delicately placed”, insiders cautioned, and there is still a risk the transaction slips or unravels at the eleventh hour.
For Tej Lalvani, the former Dragons’ Den panellist who has run the company since 2015, the deal would mark a remarkable chapter in a story that began on the warehouse floor. Fresh out of university three decades ago, Lalvani drove a forklift at the family business before working his way up through operations to the corner office, succeeding his father, Kartar, who founded the firm in 1971.
A British supplements powerhouse
Vitabiotics is the rare British consumer-health champion that has built genuine high-street recognition. Its stable of brands, Wellman, Wellwoman, Perfectil, Pregnacare and Menopace among them, sit on pharmacy shelves in more than 100 countries, while its celebrity ambassador roster reads like a Strictly after-party guest list: former host Tess Daly, supermodel David Gandy and broadcaster Davina McCall have all fronted campaigns.
Under Tej Lalvani’s leadership, the group’s annual global sales are said to have almost doubled from £101 million to £195.6 million, although the exact figures are hard to verify. Vitabiotics Group Holdings, the parent entity, sits within a complex ownership structure ultimately registered in the British Virgin Islands, an arrangement that allows the company to keep the finer points of its financial performance under wraps. The Lalvani family is ranked 255th on The Sunday Times’ Rich List, with an estimated fortune of £525 million.
A controversial buyer
If completed, the sale would represent another statement deal in UK consumer health for Boston-headquartered Bain Capital, which has been ploughing capital into the nutrition and wellness space, including its 2023 acquisition of US sports nutrition group 1440 Foods and a stake in India’s Emcure Pharmaceuticals.
It would also reopen a familiar debate. Bain is no stranger to controversy in the British market: in 2021, its £530 million swoop on the mutual insurer LV was famously rejected by members in a vote that ricocheted through Westminster and the City. The firm has spent the years since rebuilding its reputation among UK boards and policymakers, and a Vitabiotics deal would underscore how appetite for British family-owned consumer brands has rebounded, a theme Business Matters has tracked across the sector, including Danone’s recent €1 billion swoop on Huel.
The sale process has been overseen by boutique investment bank Houlihan Lokey. After fielding interest from several of the world’s largest buyout houses, the shortlist was whittled down to Bain and Blackstone earlier this year, before Vitabiotics entered exclusive talks with Bain last month. EQT and TPG, two of the other early suitors, dropped away as the price tag firmed up at close to £1 billion.
That valuation puts the business at roughly 4.5 times its claimed sales, a punchy multiple that reflects both the defensive cash flows associated with supplements and the broader resurgence in UK private equity dealmaking, where buyout houses are paying up for resilient consumer brands amid choppier macro conditions.
The Vitabiotics sale would also be a useful barometer of where deep-pocketed sponsors see growth in the post-pandemic wellness boom, with consumers continuing to spend on preventive health products even as broader discretionary categories soften.
What it means for Lalvani
For Tej Lalvani himself, the sale would mark the end of an era. He joined Dragons’ Den in 2017 and stayed on the BBC show for four series, backing companies that ranged from herbal tea brands and protein shake bottles to knitting accessories. Like many Dragons’ Den investors before him, he leveraged the platform to raise his profile as much as to build a portfolio, though his day job at Vitabiotics has always overshadowed his television deals.
What he chooses to do with a windfall of this scale will be watched closely. With Bain expected to retain the operational team, Lalvani is likely to remain involved in some capacity, at least through a transition period. According to reports in the Financial Times, the deal would rank among the largest sponsor-led acquisitions of a UK family-owned consumer business this year.
Bain Capital declined to comment. Vitabiotics had been approached for comment.
