European Commission Halts Review Of Zimmer’s Biomet Bid (MedDeviceOnline)
Your Dashboard for the Zimmer-Biomet Merger
The European Commission said it is temporarily stopping its review of the proposed merger between orthopedics companies Zimmer Holdings and Biomet pending additional information from Zimmer.
In a recent statement, Zimmer said that regulators declared that the initial notification it submitted with its bid for Biomet lacked some details, but added that it is working with the Commission to provide the requested additional information to be submitted at a future, unspecified date. It did not specify what type of information was missing from the original submission.
“The notification that the Commission received was incomplete,” Commission spokesman for competition policy Antoine Colombanni said in a Reuters article. The Commission received the documents on June 3.
The Commission scrapped the original deadline of July 9 for the submission of documents for the proposed merger, and said it would announce a new deadline soon, according to the Zimmer press release. Zimmer said the deal is still expected to close in the first quarter of 2015.
“Zimmer will file with the SEC a registration statement on Form S-4, in which a consent solicitation statement will be included as a prospectus, and other documents in connection with the proposed acquisition,” the statement said.
In April, Zimmer announced its purchase of Biomet for $13.4 billion – $10.35 billion in cash and $3.0 billion in common stock — to create the world’s second-largest orthopedics company behind Johnson & Johnson. After the merger, Zimmer shareholders will hold 84 percent of the new company, while Biomet shareholders will hold the remaining 16 percent.
Biomet chose to forego a planned initial public offering in agreeing to be acquired by Zimmer. By merging with Zimmer, Biomet had gained “a bigger platform for growth in the broader marketplace,” Jeffrey Binder, Biomet’s president and CEO, said in an article in Law360.
For Zimmer, the merger allows it to strengthen its sports medicine and orthopedic products portfolio for hip and knee injuries.
According to Law360, the merger between the two Warsaw, Ind.-based companies would result in $7.8 billion in combined revenues for the current calendar year, as well as savings of $270 million every year in overlapping costs within three years of completing the deal.