London-listed Instem has been taken private in a £200m deal marking the second British life sciences company this week to be snapped up as foreign buyers target the UK for cheap takeover deals.
The Staffordshire-based company, which provides IT services used in drug development for the global life sciences market, has been acquired by French healthcare-focused private equity group Archimed SAS for £203m.
The company, which employs about 500 staff and has an office in the US and a presence in markets including China, India, Japan and Switzerland, floated on the AIM market in 2010 at a share price of 204p.
Having reached a high of almost 900p late last year, Archimed SAS swooped with an 833p a share cash offer – 41% higher than Instem’s closing share price on Tuesday.
“The offer from [Archimed SAS] represents an attractive valuation and offers shareholders the certainty of cash today, while also fairly reflecting the exceptional quality of the Instem business, its people and its future prospects,” said David Gare, the chair of Instem. “Under [Archimed SAS’s] private ownership, without the costs and regulation of a listed company, Instem will be able to pursue its organic growth strategy, while benefiting from the expertise and capital to accelerate its successful acquisitive growth plan.”
Instem is the second British life sciences business in as many days to be taken private by a foreign buyer, after Cambridge-based Abcam accepted a $5.7bn offer from the US tech conglomerate Danaher.
Abcam, which was founded in 1998 and has been listed on New York’s tech-focused Nasdaq stock exchange since 2020, initiated a strategic review after the founder Jonathan Milner unsuccessfully attempted to take back control of the company.
Milner, 58, who was chief executive of Abcam until 2014 and holds a 6.1% stake, was seeking to be made executive chairman of the business and had called for its sale. He ended his bid when it emerged that suitors were interested buying the business, which has a market value of $3.5bn excluding debt.
Abcam is a global supplier of antibodies and other materials to about 750,000 researchers in the life sciences drug discovery and diagnostics sector.
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Danaher, which has a market value of $190bn, was one of more than 20 potential acquirers that emerged during Abcam’s strategic review.
Next month, the Cambridge-based chip design company Arm, which is owned by the Japanese investment firm Softbank, will return to the public markets, choosing New York over London, in what is expected to be the biggest flotation in the US in two years.
