14th July 2021

£400M Diagnostics and Life Sciences Sale Wins Deal Of The Month

The sale of BBI Group, a South Wales-headquartered supplier of products and services to the diagnostics and life sciences industries, has won Deal of the Month for June.

Private equity firm Exponent has reached an agreement to sell BBI Group  to Novo Holdings A/S, a global life sciences investor.

Founded in 1986, BBI provides critical reagents and immunoassay development, lateral flow development, diagnostic manufacturing services, and smartphone reader technologies to a global blue-chip customer base that includes Thermo-Fisher, Merck and Siemens.

The company’s brand, BBI Solutions, provides a range of products, including antibodies, antigens, labels, complementary reagents and point of care tests.

BBI is headquartered in Crumlin and employs more than 400 employees across its sites in seven countries and four continents.

Exponent acquired BBI as a corporate carve-out from US-listed Alere (now Abbott) in 2015. Over the last five years, BBI has strengthened its management team, expanded its presence in the US, built operations in China, successfully completed three acquisitions and invested in a state of the art manufacturing facility in Wales.

BBI Group Holdco was advised by J.P. Morgan (sole financial adviser), LEK (commercial vendor diligence), PwC (financial vendor diligence) and Allen & Overy (legal adviser). Novo Holdings was advised by Lazard (sole financial adviser) and Kromann Reumert, Latham & Watkins, and Linklaters (legal advisers).