Thermo Fisher: 'Life begins in February,' as it awaits FTC approval

The announcement made last April​ was one of the largest acquisitions of the year, with Thermo Fisher shelling out $13.6bn (€10bn) for Life Tech. The firm has been looking for regulatory clearance to complete the acquisition, and though the European Commission​ and Chinese Authorities​ have both recently given the nod, Thermo Fisher still awaits approval from the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

However, this week on a conference call to discuss end-of-year results, CEO Marc Casper said the FTC is the last hurdle the firm is awaiting upon and approval should follow shortly.

“Given where we are in the process, we're including Life Technologies in our 2014 guidance, assuming an early February close date,”​ he told stakeholders, before reiterating what the deal would bring to the company.

“[Life Tech’s] highly respected as one of the world's leading life science research companies. In terms of the financial contribution, Life Technologies will add nearly $4 billion of revenue to our business.”​ He continued, adding: “It gives us a broader set of genomics capabilities, it gives us a leadership position in bioscience reagents, and our customers are looking forward to the combination.”​

Furthermore, both Casper and CFO Peter Wilver spoke of how Life Tech would be integrated - at least in terms of future financial reporting – with a new segment called Life Sciences Solutions being created to incorporate of the majority of the former Life Technologies and Thermo Fisher biosciences businesses.

Divestitures​

As previously reported by Biopharma-Reporter.com, Thermo Fisher has been forced to offload certain units including its HyClone cell culture business and its gene modulation business, as well as giving up its 51% stake in Chinese bioengineering firm Lanzhou National HyClone Engineering.

However, when questioned to whether the FTC would likely insist on any further divestitures, Casper said: “We are just finalizing the documentation process but we are not expecting any additional divestitures or anything of that sort.”​

Results​

For the final quarter 2013, the company posted “impressive”​ results, according to ISI analyst Ross Muken, with the firm beating both top and bottom line consensus. Core growth driven by continuing strong healthcare and diagnostic demand and solid applied markets was particularly robust, Muken added in a note.

For the full year, revenue across all sectors stood at $13.1bn, up 4.6% year-over-year. Net income was also up by 8.2% to $1.3bn.