American medical device giant Baxter International plans to acquire Hill-Rom Holdings for approximately US$10 billion, and the two parties are in in-depth negotiations.
The transaction valued Hill-Rom at approximately $150 per share, which represents a premium of about 13% over the stock's closing price of $132.90 last Friday. The source said that the two sides may reach an agreement as early as this week, but the possibility of the breakdown of negotiations is not ruled out.
Hill-Rom previously rejected Baxter International's $9.6 billion acquisition offer, which is $144 per share. Hill-Rom believes that the offer is too low.
The medical industry is accelerating global mergers and acquisitions, and the scale of mergers and acquisitions in this industry is often large. Medtronic acquired Covidien Plc for $43 billion, and Abbott acquired St. Jude Medical, a medical device manufacturer, for $25 billion.
At present, Baxter has established more than 250 companies and branches in more than 110 countries around the world, with a total of approximately 50,000 employees worldwide, and produces and sells more than 100,000 medical products.
Hill-Rom was founded in 1915 and is headquartered in Chicago. It produces a series of hospital medical equipment, including stretchers, patient monitors, operating tables and electrocardiographs. So far this year, the company's share price has risen 36%, twice the increase in the medical device sector over the same period. In contrast, Baxter International’s stock price has fallen 7.8% this year.