Showing posts with label GE Healthcare. Show all posts
Showing posts with label GE Healthcare. Show all posts

Friday, October 22, 2010

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

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Is GE About To Stir Up The Medical Arena?

With the worst of the credit crunch over and plenty of cheap candidates, General Electric (NYSE:GE) may be about to become more active with acquisitions. With some oblique comments from a senior executive, it would seem that this American conglomerate is once again about to leverage its considerable capital resources. Investors may want to consider the sorts of companies that GE may be looking at as potential targets.

Sticking to the Knitting
Although GE is a frequently-mentioned name in the guessing game of healthcare acquisitions, the company is actually rather focused and consistent with its healthcare business. GE is a significant presence in the imaging, diagnostics, life sciences and healthcare IT spaces. By and large, the company steers away from interventional products, so the likelihood that GE would buy a company like Stryker (NYSE:SYK) is quite low.

Cancer Therapy
Although GE is not active in interventional medicine, Varian (NYSE:VAR) might be a logical way for the company to make that transition. An argument could be made that Varian's radiation therapy systems would be a natural extension of GE's diagnostic imaging products. Along similar lines, TomoTherapy (Nasdaq:TOMO) or Accuray (Nasdaq:ARAY) could get some consideration, though TOMO may be too small and Accuray too novel.


The link below will take you to the full article:
http://stocks.investopedia.com/stock-analysis/2010/Is-GE-About-To-Stir-Up-The-Medical-Arena-GE-VAR-VOLC-MASI-BRKR-TMO-ISRG1019.aspx