Warburg Pincus set to take stake in Sebia diagnostics group

Orignal from: Financial Times

Private equity group Warburg Pincus is nearing a deal to take a large minority stake in French diagnostics group Sebia, which values the business at €5.4bn, according to people familiar with the matter.

The deal follows an auction process in which several private equity groups vied for the asset. The current owners, including CVC Capital Partners, Téthys Invest and Canada’s La Caisse, formerly known as Caisse de Dépôt et Placement du Quebec, have retained minority equity stakes as part of the deal.

The size of Warburg’s stake amounts to roughly a third of the business and makes the private equity group the biggest shareholder in the company, one of the people said. Warburg’s equity cheque has been partly bankrolled by Singaporean sovereign wealth fund GIC.

A deal would probably be announced in the coming days, but that timing could still change, the people said.

The minority stake sale is the latest in a succession of private equity-backed healthcare deals in Europe, following the sale of generic drugmaker Stada to CapVest Partners for €10bn and Advent’s sale of another generics company Zentiva for €4.1bn.

Sebia — in which CVC and Téthys first invested in 2017, valuing the business at just over €2bn — specialises in vitro diagnostics, which are used to identify and monitor a wide variety of conditions, including certain cancers, diabetes and autoimmune diseases.

Warburg Pincus and La Caisse declined to comment. Sebia, CVC, Téthys, and GIC did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

There were $198bn in healthcare deals globally until the end of August, up 2 per cent on the same period last year, according to LSEG Intelligence data, with private equity striking multiple deals to buy generic drugmakers, contract drug manufacturers and other life sciences companies.

Source: Warburg Pincus set to take stake in Sebia diagnostics group