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Grifols, Talecris sign consent agreement with FTC staff, win tentative approval of acquisition
Bloomberg.com
Grifols SA won tentative U.S. antitrust approval to buy Talecris Biotherapeutics Holdings Corp. for $4 billion after agreeing to sell some assets, reducing the number of major companies in the blood-plasma industry to three.
Grifols will sell two plasma collection centers, Talecris’s Koate blood-protein unit and a plant in Melville, New York, under a consent agreement with the staff of the Federal Trade Commission, the companies said in a statement today. The deal is subject to approval by the five-member commission, they said.
The deal gives Barcelona-based Grifols, Europe’s largest maker of blood-plasma products, a bigger share of the $7 billion U.S. market for blood-based infusions. The company will compete with Baxter International Inc. and Melbourne-based CSL Ltd., which scrapped a proposed $3.1 billion acquisition of Talecris in 2009 following FTC objections.
“We are happy about the announcement as it’s a very significant step, but we still need to wait for the final approval,” Deputy Chief Financial Officer Nuria Pascual said in a telephone interview. She said Grifols expects a decision in three or four weeks.
The U.S. now accounts for about a third of Grifols’s sales. The acquisition of Research Triangle Park, North Carolina-based Talecris would increase that to two-thirds, Pascual said on Nov. 5. Grifols would have had to pay Talecris a $375 million breakup fee if the FTC had blocked the deal.
Grifols gained as much as 7.7 percent in Madrid trading, reaching the highest level since Jan. 22, 2009. The stock climbed 85 cents to 14.22 euros at 11:07 a.m. local time.
Talecris holders will receive $31.83 a share in cash and stock in the sale, based on the April 29 closing price. Talecris rose 9 cents, or 0.3 percent, to close at $27.92 in Nasdaq Stock Market trading April 29.
Grifols will sell the assets to Kedrion of Italy, another biotherapeutics company specializing in plasma products, and provide contract manufacturing, according to the statement. It will also operate the Melville plant for as many as four years under a lease agreement. Koate is the Talecris plasma-derived product to treat hemophilia, a disorder in which the body lacks blood- clotting proteins.
