Eurofins to Buy Lancaster Labs

PARISEurofins Scientific SE has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Lancaster, PA-based Lancaster Laboratories, Inc. from Thermo Fisher Scientific, Inc. for approximately $200 million (USD).

Lancaster Labs, which has approximately 1,100 employees in the United States and Ireland, is one of the leading environmental testing laboratories in addition to providing pharmaceutical product testing services and cGMP Quality Control (QC) in North America. Lancaster posted about $115m in revenues in 2010 and has been growing rapidly over the last 50 years.

Eurofins said the acquisition will help it become the global leader in this very stable and recurring business and significantly enlarges its North American footprint. It further said the acquisition reinforces the scale and quality of service of its leadership on a wide range of laboratory activities for the pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical industries in North America, Europe and Asia.

The transaction is expected to close in the next two or three months, subject to applicable regulatory approvals and customary closing conditions. According to Eurofins, implied EV/EBITDA multiple is in line with levels previously communicated for transactions of this size and Eurofins value-creation objectives. No site consolidations or restructuring costs are foreseen as a result of this acquisition, and the transaction should be immediately margin and EPS accretive for Eurofins.