One of the few big privately held German lab groups, Labo Leverkusen is up for sale. The group has built its operation fast by winning big outsourcing contracts from German hospitals at cut throat prices.

Despite this, sources say that Leverkusen could well fetch a high price as it is one of the last big groups which can be snapped up by private equity players.

Leverkusen was bidding as little as 10-15% of the gold-plated private patient PKV GOÄ price to win contracts. That led to rapid growth and we estimate Leverkusen sales at circa €120m in 2009. Lab prices have bounced back well with BC paying 9-10 times EBITDA for Italian group Fleming Brescia last year.