Halyard Health (NYSE:HYH) is mulling a shift in focus to medical devices by selling off its surgical and infection prevention business, which could fetch more than $600 million, people familiar with the matter told Reuters yesterday.
The move would ditch its line of underperforming, low-margin commodities in favor of its line of post-operative pain management devices. Sales for the medical supplies arm were off -3% during Halyard’s fiscal 1st quarter, but the medical device segment’s revenues were up 15%, according to the wire service.
“We continue to invest in fueling our growth pipeline to shift our portfolio to higher margin faster growing medical devices,” CEO Robert Abernathy said during a quarterly earnings call last month.
The Alpharetta, Ga.-based company tapped Deutsche Bank to shop the medical supplies business but there’s no guarantee of a deal, the people said.
Halyard last year paid Linden Capital Partners $174 million for Corpak MedSystems and its line of feeding tubes.
The company was created by the spinout of the healthcare division at Kimberly-Clark (NYSE:KMB) in October 2014.
