GE Goes Outside The Box In Healthcare

There is an old saying that if you are going to make predictions, you may as well make a lot of them. Even though I recently laid out multiple medical technology acquisition prospects for General Electric (NYSE:GE), GE managed to go off the board with an interesting purchase. 

On Friday morning, GE announced an agreement to acquire Clarient (Nasdaq:CLRT), a specialist in oncology diagnostics services. GE is paying cash in this deal, giving common shareholders $5 a share (versus Thursday's close of $3.74) and preferred shareholders $20 per share. That is a total deal value of $580 million for a company with about $100 million in trailing revenue.

As a major holder (more than 30 million shares as of September), Safeguard Scientifics (NYSE:SFE) will benefit significantly from this deal, booking roughly a $145 million gain in the transaction. (For more, see Is GE About To Stir Up The Medical Arena?)


Please click the link for the full article:
http://stocks.investopedia.com/stock-analysis/2010/General-Electric-Goes-Outside-The-Box-In-Healthcare-GE-CLRT-LH-DGX-SFE-GXDX1022.aspx