[B]ioTek Instruments, a privately owned global medical device company based in Winooski, has been sold to the public company Agilent Technologies for more than $1 billion, the two companies announced Wednesday.
BioTek employs about 500 people worldwide, with 11 offices in Asia, the Middle East, and Europe, according to its website. It had revenues of $162 million last year, and is expected to grow by about 10% in 2019, the two companies said.
Including tax benefits, Agilent said, the net purchase price will be about $1.05 billion.
Mike McMullen, Agilent president and CEO, said Agilent plans to keep BioTek’s operations in Vermont and retain its nearly 500 employees worldwide.
BioTek was founded in 1968 by Norman Alpert, a professor at the University of Vermont, where he was chair of the Department of Physiology and Biophysics. Alpert founded the company to make tools for biomedical safety testing, and then around 1981 included microplate-based instrumentation, the company said.
Alpert’s son, Briar Alpert, is CEO of the company; his other son, Adam, retired in January, according to Vermont Business Magazine. The magazine said Briar Alpert began looking for a buyer for the company in January, met with an investment banker who helped put a value on the company and met with five bidders who visited Vermont.
“They were diligent about finding the right buyer to create stability for the 300-person workforce in Vermont,” said Commerce Secretary Mike Schirling, who was familiar with the transaction from conversations he had with Gov. Phil Scott. “They were looking for a buyer who could keep the company in Vermont.”
Agilent — which describes itself as a Hewlett-Packard spinoff — is based in Santa Clara, California. The company said in a prepared release that the sale “positions Agilent well in the large and growing immuno-oncology and immunotherapy markets and expands the company’s presence in biopharma, academia and research.”
The transaction is expected to be completed sometime at the end of this year.
“BioTek represents a strong strategic fit with Agilent,” McMullen said. “The combination of these two companies will accelerate our multi-year growth strategy to expand our position in cell analysis. This is another example of Agilent investing in high-growth segments of the life sciences market to serve new and existing customers.”
Briar Alpert said the two companies have been working together for nearly a year.
BioTek last spring was awarded nearly $100,000 in state money through the Vermont Training Program, which is administered by the state Agency of Commerce and Community Development.
Several Vermont companies have changed hands recently, including the German-owned Commonwealth Dairy in Brattleboro, which this week announced its purchase by the French dairy company Lactalis. Members of the St. Albans Cooperative Creamery will be asked this month to approve a merger with Dairy Farmers of America, based in Kansas City. Okemo Mountain Resort and Stowe Mountain Resort were both sold to Vail Resorts of Colorado over the last few years, and in 2017, Vermont Creamery in Websterville was purchased by Land O’Lakes in Minnesota.
“This is a common national trend,” said Schirling, saying succession planning is one typical reason for change of ownership, and a need for growth capital is another. “The increasing complexity of the business operating environment often makes it sort of a ripe target for companies to merge or for larger companies to acquire smaller companies.”
Although the public and employees sometimes express concerns about how such sales change the culture of Vermont companies, it’s possible that without such sales, some smaller Vermont companies might not compete successfully, said Tom Torti, president of the Lake Champlain Regional Chamber of Commerce. He cited the trajectory of Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, a small business that started in Waterbury and ended up part of a large entity called Keurig Dr. Pepper based in Massachusetts and Texas that has slowly been withdrawing jobs and functions from its Vermont location.
“You’ve seen a continued attrition of jobs, a focus externally to places where they have other corporate headquarters,” Torti said of Keurig Dr. Pepper. “That said, some of these places might not have been able to survive in the hyper-competitive world they compete in without being bought out. Green Mountain Coffee is a good example of that.”
