Merck KGaA to Buy Sigma-Aldrich for $17B
Merck KGaA today announced that it will acquire Sigma-Aldrich for $17 billion. Under the terms of the agreement, Merck will acquire all outstanding shares of Sigma-Aldrich for $140 per share, which would represent a 37 percent premium to Sigma-Aldrich's closing stock price of $102.37 on Sept. 19. The deal is anticipated to be immediately accretive to Merck's EPS pre and EBITDA margin, the companies said, and Merck anticipates achieving annual synergies of about €260 million ($334 million) within three years after the completion of the acquisition. In a statement, Merck KGaA Chairman Karl-Ludwig Kley called the deal a "quantum leap" for the company's life science business, whose contributions to the German firm's overall earnings would more than double with the addition of Sigma-Aldrich. "In one of the world's key industries two companies that fit perfectly together have found each other to present a much broader product offering to our global cus...