Royal Philips (NYSE:PHG) and Volcano (NSDQ:VOLC) said today that they’ve agreed to a deal that will see Philips pay $18 per share, or roughly $1.2 billion including debt, to acquire Volcano and its cardiovascular imaging technology.
The price represents a 56.7% premium over VOLC’s $11.49 closing price yesterday. The company’s stock has lost about 60% of its value this year.
The merger, expected to close during the 1st quarter next year, adds Volcano’s intravascular ultrasound and fractional flow reserve technologies to Philips’ portfolio of interventional imaging equipment.
"The agreement to acquire Volcano significantly advances our strategy to become the leading systems integrator in image-guided therapies," Royal Philips CEO Frans van Houten said in prepared remarks. "Volcano’s impressive and unique product portfolio is highly complementary to our strong offering in live image-guidance solutions, creating an opportunity to accelerate the revenue growth for our image-guided therapy business to a high single-digit rate by 2017. Our combined sales forces will be able to capture immediate cross selling opportunities, while our joint R&D teams will be able to develop new solutions to address significant unmet needs in the minimally invasive treatment of cardiovascular diseases.
“Image-guided therapies provide significant benefits for healthcare systems and patients, including reduced patient trauma, shorter recovery times and hospital stays, and lower costs. As a result, our clinical partners and customers are asking for a tighter integration of imaging and measurement technologies to enable such therapies. This transaction allows us to provide our customers with an integrated solution to improve procedural outcomes at a decisive stage in the health continuum," van Houten added.
"I am very excited that Volcano will become part of Philips and join forces with its leading image guided therapy business," Volcano president & CEO Scott Huennekens said in prepared remarks. "This transaction will be beneficial for our shareholders, customers, partners and employees. There is a large and growing global market opportunity for image-guided therapies, and as part of Philips, we gain the scale and resources needed to accelerate our goals of improving patient outcomes on a global basis, lowering cost and delivering innovative diagnostics and therapies in the coronary and peripheral markets. In addition, our shared expertise in the image-guided therapy market will allow us to further globalize our leading IVUS and FFR product offerings and enter new product areas. We look forward to working closely with Philips and ensuring a smooth transition and closing."
Philips said it will integrate the 1,800-worker Volcano business into a new image-guided therapy business led by Bert van Meurs, a senior vice president at Philips Healthcare. The deal is expected to be accretive to reported earnings by 2017, with a targeted EBITA market for the new business of roughly 20% by that year, according to a press release.
