Cardiac Science invites Spacelabs to merge

November was a banner month for medical market consolidation, with Philips/ADAC, Cerner/ADAC, Philips/Agilent, Kodak/Lumisys, and Kodak/R2 among the more prominent deals. Now Cardiac Science has offered to buy Spacelabs Medical for about $143 million, paying $15 per share for all outstanding common stock, a 45% premium over the Nov. 13 per-share price.

Spacelabs rebuffed an offer made by Cardiac Science in mid-November, prompting Cardiac Science to publish its offer openly. The company has already acquired 320,200 shares of Spacelabs and has nominated a full slate of alternate candidates for the Spacelabs board of directors.

Cardiac Science plans to integrate its automatic defibrillation technology into Spacelabs' installed base of approximately 65,000 hospital patient monitors, according to Raymond Cohen, the company's president and CEO. Cardiac wants to accelerate the adoption of its core technology by other players in the cardiac patient monitoring market, including Philips (through its acquisition of Agilent Healthcare Solutions Group), GE Medical, Siemens, and Datex Ohmeda, by exploiting Spacelabs' customer base and its cardiac telemetry and telemedicine monitoring products.

© 2000 Miller Freeman Inc.
12/13/00, Issue # 118, page 3.