Eurofins signs agreement to acquire Lancaster Laboratories, Inc.

Eurofins Scientific SE has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Lancaster Laboratories, Inc. from Thermo Fisher Scientific, Inc. for approximately US$200m, subject to post-closing adjustments.

With approximately 1,100 employees in the USA and Ireland, Lancaster is the leading provider of pharmaceutical product testing services and cGMP Quality Control (QC) in North America. In addition, it operates one of the leading environmental testing laboratories in the USA. Lancaster has been growing rapidly over the last 50 years and generated sales of approximately US$115m in 2010. Lancaster operates the largest single-site independent pharmaceutical product testing laboratory in the world.

With this bolt on acquisition, the Eurofins Group becomes the global leader in this very stable and recurring business and significantly enlarges its North American footprint. It is a further expression of Eurofins' commitment to serve the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries with laboratory services of the highest quality and reliability. The acquisition reinforces the Group's leadership in terms of scale and quality of service on a wide range of laboratory activities for the pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical industries in North America, Europe and Asia.

Lancaster is also one of the oldest, largest and most reputable environmental testing laboratories in the USA. It has a solid reputation for excellence in service quality and reliability and enjoys long standing relationships with many Fortune 500 clients. Lancaster's strong position and reputation for top quality service in environmental testing in the USA fit well with Eurofins' strategy of being the global market leader with a focus on providing high quality services to large global corporations.

Completion of the transaction is expected in the next 2-3 months and is subject to applicable regulatory approvals and customary closing conditions. Implied EV/EBITDA multiple is in-line with levels previously communicated for transactions of this size and Eurofins' value-creation objectives. Given that Lancaster is already a single-site laboratory in the USA, no site consolidations or restructuring costs are foreseen as a result of this acquisition. Based on Lancaster's historic profitability and budget for 2011, the transaction should be immediately margin and EPS accretive for Eurofins.

Source: Eurofins Scientific