EXCLUSIVE-Life Technologies sale process cools, stock falls -sources
(Recasts first paragraph, adds stock fall)
NEW YORK, Feb 20 (Reuters) - An $11 billion-plus sale of Life Technologies Corp is less likely after a big run-up in its shares made a deal less attractive to potential buyer Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc and private equity, people familiar with the matter said.
Life Tech's shares, up almost 30 percent this year, plunged on the news and were down 7 percent to $58.92 in early trading in New York on Wednesday. Thermo Fisher shares were down 2.9 percent to $72.82.
Thermo Fisher, the world's largest maker of laboratory equipment and scientific instruments, had held discussions with Life Technologies but is no longer actively pursuing a deal, as a big run-up in Life Tech's shares made the economics of a transaction less attractive, one of the people said this week.
Likewise, private equity firms, including Blackstone Group LP, KKR & Co LP, Bain Capital LLC and TPG Capital LP, have made initial offers that valued Life Technologies close to the elevated level its shares had reached prior to the start of trading on Wednesday. The offers would need to be increased significantly to win the approval of Life Tech's board, other people familiar with the matter said.
The talks with the interested parties are continuing and other potential buyers could still emerge, the people added. They asked not to be identified because the talks are private.
Life Technologies said in a statement it was continuing its annual strategic review, but did not refer specifically to the sale process.
"As the Board continues its annual strategic review, Life Technologies remains focused on transforming relationships with life science customers, winning in genetic analysis from discovery to diagnostics and leveraging our world-class platform to drive growth," it said.
Thermo Fisher, KKR, Bain and TPG declined to comment, while Blackstone did not respond to a request for comment.
Analysts have said Thermo Fisher would benefit from the scale and synergies that a tie-up with Life Technologies would bring, with the exception of Life Tech's genetic sequencing business, which Thermo Fisher could choose to divest after a deal. Yet a lot depends on the price Thermo Fisher would be willing to offer.
The surge in Life Tech's shares since the start of the year was spurred primarily by its announcement on Jan. 18 that it had retained investment banks to advise it on its annual strategic review, fanning investor hopes for a sale.
The shares ended trading on Tuesday at $63.36, giving it a market value of close to $11 billion, after trading above $60 throughout February. But at that level, Thermo Fisher was skeptical that it could make an offer that Life Tech's board would accept, one of the people said.
"We wonder if Thermo Fisher's shareholders would be willing to pay in the $75-per-share range that we expect Life Tech's shareholders might require from a strategic buyer in order to acquire a company with a lower organic growth profile," Credit Suisse analysts wrote in a note on Feb. 5, following the publication of Life Tech's fourth-quarter earnings.
Life Tech trades at 14.4 times its 12-month projected earnings versus a 13.4 times average for its peer group, and has an enterprise value 9.1 times forward earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA), compared with 7.9 times for its peers on average, according to Thomson Reuters data.
SPENDING CUTS
The proposed $24.4 billion leveraged buyout of PC maker Dell Inc has raised market expectations for other huge deals not seen since the financial crisis of 2008.
But several private equity executives have noted that the Dell deal is atypical because the company's huge cash pile and the rollover of its founder's stake in the deal allow for relatively low leverage.
"You have to pay 10.5 times EBITDA roughly to convince Life Tech shareholders to sell. You can borrow only up to seven times, which leaves 3.5 to four times to equity, which is a very sizeable equity check," said one of the dealmakers, on condition of anonymity.
Life Technologies, which makes genetic testing equipment and products used in biotechnology development, has said its 2013 outlook does not presume that automatic U.S. budget cuts, known as sequestration, will kick in - a move that would constrain spending by Life Tech's government and academic customers.
The Carlsbad, California-based company has forecast revenue growth of 3 to 5 percent over 2012 sales of $3.8 billion. If sequestration is implemented, it would reduce revenue by about 1 percent and the company would expect to be at the low end of its $4.30-to-$4.45-per-share earnings guidance range for 2013, Life has said.
Thermo Fisher has said that sequestration is likely and that it has taken steps to prepare. The Waltham, Massachusetts-based company declined to comment about a possible bid for Life Tech when asked about it repeatedly during the publication of its earnings.
The U.S. government's efforts to curb spending to fix its budget deficit have already resulted in a lull in government-sponsored medical research, hurting companies that make life-science tools. Thermo Fisher has responded by expanding in emerging markets such as China.
With Congress off this week, chances are diminishing that a political compromise will be reached by a March 1 deadline to avoid about $85 billion in across-the-board spending cuts, which would kick in at the beginning of March and continue through Sept. 30 as part of a decade-long $1.2 trillion U.S. budget savings plan.
(Reporting by Greg Roumeliotis and Soyoung Kim in New York; Editing by Edmund Klamann and Dan Grebler)