The South African businessman running a R53 billion pharmaceutical giant in Australia

South African businessman Vikesh Ramsunder is now leading Sigma Healthcare in Australia after a nearly three-decade history at the Clicks Group.

Ramsunder has served as the Managing Director and CEO of Sigma Healthcare Limited since February 2022.

The Australian company focuses on pharmacy operations and manages over 1,200 branded and independent pharmacies.

Before that, he spent 28 years at the South African Clicks Group, with 18 of these being as part of the executive team. He served as the CEO of the group from January 2019 until December 2021.

Under his leadership, Clicks and United Pharmaceutical Distributors (UPD) entrenched their market-leading positions. He expanded its retail presence to over 800 stores and 600 pharmacies.

The group’s share price also rose by 60% under his tenure, seeing its market cap rise from R48 billion to R75 billion despite the severe impacts of Covid-19.

He was replaced by the current Clicks CEO, Bertina Engelbrecht, who joined the group in 2006 and served as its group corporate affairs director before her new role.

Before becoming CEO at Clicks, Ramsunder held several roles at the Clicks Group. This included store, logistics and management positions across the group.

He also served as the Managing Director of the pharmaceutical wholesaler business, UPD, from 2010 to 2015, where he was instrumental in driving its integrated pharmaceutical wholesale and distribution strategy.

He left Clicks to move to Australia and take over at Sigma Healthcare at the start of 2022, serving as strategic advisor of the South African company until August of that year.

Sigma appointed him due to his valuable blend of operational leadership, strategic focus, industry and financial acumen.

The Australian giant was also impressed by his extensive experience in wholesaling, logistics, pharmacy and retail, as well as his leadership that saw Clicks’ share price grow.

On top of his work experiance, Ramsunder’s holds a B.Com in Logistics and Master of Business Leadership in Corporate Strategy.

What he’s doing at Sigma

Ramsunder’s reign at Sigma has not been uneventful, with the CEO overseeing a massive merger with another Australian pharmaceutical giant, Chemist Warehouse Group (CWG).

Publicly-listed Sigma agreed to acquire all the shares in CWG in a reverse merger transaction, with Sigma paying AUD$ 700 million in cash and its shares. 

Under the merger, WG shareholders will hold approximately 85.75% of the merged entity, while Sigma shareholders will hold the rest.

The response to the merger was positive, with Sigma Healthcare’s share price rising by 40% following the approval from the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission in November 2024.

The company, whose market cap now stands at R53.61 billion, saw strong results in its latest financial results for the year ended 31 January 2025.

The group’s reported normalised revenue growth of 50.9% to AU$4.8 billion (R55.10 billion) and normalised Earnings Before Interest and Tax growth of 183.5% to $68.0 million (R780 million).

“Over the last three years, we have executed our strategy to build scale, drive efficiencies, simplify our business and enhance our margin,” said Ramsunder in the results.

“This laser focus has materially enhanced our operational performance, and these final stand-alone results illustrate the strong underlying performance of the business.”

He added that he was proud that they were able to meet their customers’ needs despite the increase in volume following the onboarding of the new CWG supply contract and the merger’s time commitment.

“Looking ahead and having concluded the merger, our management teams are focused on seamless integration and delivering long-term value to shareholders,” said Ramsunder.

“We have created a leading wholesaler and retail franchisor with strong growth potential in Australia and progressively internationally.”