Duke Street Capital has bought Biomnis, the big French specialist laboratory group, for €217m. Our sources say Duke Street paid 10x EBITA. Other private equity houses feel Duke Street has overpaid in what was an auction.
Commercial Director, Laurent Slusarek, claims that Biomnis, with sales of €220m, is the largest specialist laboratory in Europe. Some 8% of sales comes from the private commodity routine biology market, which he puts at €4bn for France, with the remaining 92% from the specialist market worth €350m.
This is the market where the 4,200 labs in the French market refer on complex processes to either Biomnis (60% market share) or Cerba (40%).
Slusarek says the plan is to first grow sales organically in France. He thinks that Biomnis can contine to grow at 7% a year: "A lot of small labs and hospital labs are carrying out these complex processes, which could be delegated to us."
After a year or so, Biomnis hopes to expand across Europe through acquisitions: "Belgium, Germany, Spain, Italy are all interesting markets for us. There are a lot of labs in Germany which are larger than us, but they are mainly carrying out basic processes."
Our Analysis: This is the first big deal since the credit crunch really bit in late August. Others should follow fairly fast. We hear that Mid Europa has exclusive rights to buy FutureLabs and analysts at JP Morgan report in a buy note that big German hospital chain Rhoen Klinikum is in talks with six potential targets.
