Thermo Fisher picks up electron microscopy firm FEI for $4.2B

Thermo Fisher (NYSE:TMO) said today it bought electron microscopy developer FEI Company for $4.2 billion, through the acquisition of stock at $107.5 per share in cash.

FEI designs, manufactures and supports high-performance electron microscopy workflows, Thermo Fisher said. The company has more than 3,000 employees worldwide and reported revenues of $930 million last year.

“We are pleased to reach this agreement with Thermo Fisher, which offers a number of important benefits to FEI shareholders, customers and employees. Our shareholders will see substantial and immediate value through the terms of this transaction. Our customers will benefit from the shared commitment Thermo Fisher and FEI have to innovation and customer service. And our employees will see new opportunities as our development and market expansion plans accelerate by being part of Thermo Fisher, a large and growing company. Fundamentally, this transaction bolsters our already strong position in the marketplace and allows us to play an increasing role in enabling our customers to accelerate breakthrough discoveries, increase productivity and provide solutions to global challenges,” FEI CEO Don Kania said in a prepared statement.

The news came 2 months after Thermo Fisher bought gene-sequencing products maker Affymetrix Inc to boost its product offerings with smaller, complementary acquisitions.

Thermo Fisher told analysts last week that it expected to deploy about $12 billion of capital over the next three years for these deals, which could drive a $3 billion upside in revenue, Cowen and Co analysts wrote in a note.

“The addition of FEI’s leading electron microscopy platform is an outstanding strategic fit with our company and will create significant value for our customers and our shareholders. In life sciences, there is growing adoption of electron microscopy to study the structure of proteins. The technologies we gain with FEI will complement our mass spectrometry leadership, putting Thermo Fisher in the best position to capitalize on this important trend. As the unrivaled leader in life sciences, we will also be able to leverage our global scale and commercial reach to extend the use of FEI’s products within our large biopharma customer base. Finally, the transaction will be immediately accretive to our earnings and will create value for our shareholders through cost and revenue synergies,” Thermo Fisher CEO Marc Casper said in a press release.

Material from Reuters was used in this report.

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