It ’ s official: Abbott closes $5B Alere buy

Abbott (NYSE:ABT) today closed its $5.3 billion buy of diagnostics giant Alere (NYSE:ALR), ending an acquisition process the company has been engaged in since last Feb. The companies received the go-ahead from U.S. and Canadian anti-trust regulators last week, subject to concessions, after having received clearance from EU anti-trust regulators in January. With clearance in hand, the companies officially closed the tie-up today, according to an SEC filing from Abbott. Abbott offered to acquire Alere in February 2016 but the deal faced a number of speed bumps along the way, including a rejected $50 million offer from Abbott to spike the merger and a securities fraud lawsuit accusing Alere of artificially inflating its share price ahead of announcing the merger. A series of accounting snafus, including a significantly delayed Q4 2016 earnings filing and a ban imposed on its Arriva Medical diabetes division by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services also delayed the merger. In April, Abbott  agreed to a lower price of $5.3 billion – down from its initial $5.8 billion price tag. To get the deal cleared, Abbott agreed to divest a blood gas testing system to Siemens (NYSE:SI), which also agreed to buy 2 Alere facilities in Ottawa. Quidel (NSDQ:QDEL) Corp. is slated to buy Abbott’s heart function testing system business and an Alere facility in San Diego. Last week, Alere agreed to pay more than $13 million to settle SEC charges that it committed ...
Source: Mass Device - Category: Medical Devices Authors: Tags: Business/Financial News Mergers & Acquisitions Abbott Alere Source Type: news