Filed under: Deals, Raising money, GS Capital Partners, Value and lack thereof

Hologic, Inc. (NASDAQ: HOLX) has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Third Wave Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: TWTI) for a purchase price of $11.25 per share, or approximately $580 million in all. This represents about a 24% premium to Third Wave’s average trading price over the last three months. The Boards of Directors of both companies unanimously approved the transaction.

This merger is one of the more interesting in medical and diagnostic companies, despite neither company being a household name. Third Wave develops and markets molecular diagnostic reagents for a wide variety of DNA and RNA analysis applications for conditions such as Cystic Fibrosis, Hepatitis C, cardiovascular risk and other diseases. Its HPV market opportunity is a $200 million market and growth in excess of 40% in each of the past five years. Hologic believes the global market for HPV testing will increase to $800 million in the next few years.

Third Wave shareholders will receive an aggregate amount of an estimated $580 million in cash, assuming the conversion of Third Wave’s outstanding convertible notes, warrants and restricted stock. Hologic plans to finance this transaction with a $600 million loan in the form of a senior secured credit facility, and it has secured fully committed debt financing for the full consideration from Goldman, Sachs & Co.

Continue reading for full details and analysis at BioHealthInvestor.com.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 18th, 2008 at 4:26 pm and is filed under Engagements and Deals News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.