Salt-to-steel conglomerate Tata Group has agreed to sell contract research company Advinus Therapeutics Ltd to Luxembourg-based Eurofins Scientific.
The transaction is likely to close in the next several weeks, subject to the fulfilment of customary closing conditions, the group said in a statement on Thursday. It didn’t give any financial details.
Tata Sons Ltd, the group holding company, as well as Tata Industries Ltd and Mumbai-listed Rallis India Ltd said they, along with individual shareholders of Advinus, have signed a definitive agreement with Eurofins for the sale.
Bangalore-based Advinus’ expertise complements Eurofins’ contract research, development and manufacturing capabilities, the statement said. Advinus serves industries such as biotech, pharmaceuticals, biologics, agrochemicals, nutraceuticals and cosmetics.
KRS Jamwal, chairman of Advinus and executive director at Tata Industries, said the deal will help Advinus expand its analytical portfolio and services.
Eurofins Scientific, which was founded in 1987, has 375 laboratories across 41 countries in Europe, North and South America and Asia-Pacific. Since its IPO on the French stock exchange in 1997, Eurofins' sales have increased at a compound annual pace of 37% to over 2.54 billion euros in 2016, according to its website.
In February, Eurofins said it aimed to achieve close to 2.9 billion euros in revenue and 550 million euro of adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization at constant currency for the year. It also said it aims to grow by about 11.3% a year over the medium term, including about 200 million euro per year from acquisitions, to reach revenue of 4 billion euros by 2020.
"The group intends to continue to develop and acquire the most comprehensive range of state-of-the-art analytical technologies as well as expand its geographical reach," Eurofins said on its website.
Advinus
Advinus was founded in 2005 with former Ranbaxy R&D head Rashmi Barbhaiya. However, the company has been facing headwinds because of increasing competition that culminated in the exit of Barbhaiya last year in March.
The Economic Times reported last year that Advinus asked about 50 members at its Pune-based drug discovery services unit to leave while some others were moved to its Bengaluru centre. According to ratings company ICRA, Advinus clocked a loss of Rs 5.2 crore in the first nine months of 2015-16 on an operating income of Rs 126.1 crore.
Tata Sons was much in news last year after its board replaced Cyrus Pallonji Mistry as its chairman with former chief Ratan Tata, less than four years after Mistry took over as the head of India’s biggest business conglomerate by revenue. It has since tried to put the house in order with the appointment of the head of its flagship firm Tata Consultancy Services, Natarajan Chandrasekaran, as the chairman.
