Gerresheimer is to sell its laboratory glassware business to a private equity investor.
It said the sale was part of an effort to focus on delivery devices and pharmaceutical packaging.
Duran group – part of JPMorgan’s merchant banking arm One Equity Partners – will pay $131m (€116m) in cash for Kimble Chase Life Science and Research Products, a US-based joint venture Gerresheimer co-owns with Chase Scientific Glass.
Uwe Röhrhoff, Gerresheimer CEO, said: “Producing laboratory glassware is not a core business for us and synergies are very limited. Together with our joint venture partner Chase Scientific Glass, Inc., we have decided to sell the business.”
Kimble Chase has manufacturing facilities in the US, Mexico, Germany and China and employs 760 people.
Its product portfolio includes reusable laboratory glassware for research, development and analytics, such as beakers, Erlenmeyer flasks and measuring cylinders as well as disposable laboratory products such as culture tubes, pipettes, chromatography vials and other speciality laboratory glassware.
The firm generates most of its revenues - €100.7m in 2015 – in North America.
Sales for the six months to the end of June were €47.8m, down 2.6% on the comparable period last year.
