UPDATE: FTC Clears Danaher Buy Of MDS Unit, With Conditions
January 27 2010 - 3:22PM
Dow Jones News
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission on Wednesday cleared Danaher
Corp.'s (DHR) acquisition of MDS Analytical Technologies but
required the companies to divest assets in certain laser
microdissection devices as a condition of government approval.
The FTC said the devices are a key tool for scientific research
and said the divestiture was needed to preserve competition in that
market.
Under the companies' settlement with the FTC, they will sell
MDS's Arcturus brand of laser microdissection devices to Life
Technologies Corp (LIFE).
Danaher had originally proposed combining the Arcturus brand
with its Leica brand of the devices. The FTC said that combination
would have been anticompetitive because there are only four North
American suppliers of the devices, which are used to separate small
groups of cells from larger tissue samples for specialized
testing.
MDS Analytical Technologies is a subsidiary of MDS Inc (MDZ,
MDS.T). The parent company agreed in September to sell the unit to
Danaher for $650 million.
Danaher shares recently were down about 1% at $73.36, while MDS
stock was up 0.8% to $8.31. Life Technologies was up 0.6% at
$48.79.
-By Brent Kendall, Dow Jones Newswires; 202-862-9222;
brent.kendall@dowjones.com
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