Ko­re­an di­ag­nos­tics biotech goes transpa­cif­ic, agree­ing to shell out $1.5B to take Merid­i­an pri­vate

A Ko­re­an di­ag­nos­tics play­er that made mil­lions of Covid-19 tests in the ear­ly stages of the pan­dem­ic is now ex­pand­ing in­to the US mar­ket.

Cincin­nati-based Merid­i­an Bio­science put up no­tice Thurs­day morn­ing that it’s go­ing to be ac­quired by SD Biosen­sor, ac­com­pa­nied by in­vest­ment firm SJL Part­ners for $1.53 bil­lion in cash.

How the trans­ac­tion will work, ac­cord­ing to Merid­i­an, is that a “new­ly formed af­fil­i­ate ve­hi­cle” formed by SD Bio and SJL will ac­quire the com­pa­ny. In ex­change, Merid­i­an share­hold­ers will re­ceive $34 per share, a 32.4% pre­mi­um over the com­pa­ny’s share price $VI­VO when an of­fer was first made af­ter mar­ket close on March 17. The biotech’s price at that time was $25.67 per share.

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