NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) – Thermo Fisher Scientific announced yesterday that it has commenced an underwritten public offering of $1.5 billion of its common stock.
The company said it will use the proceeds from the offering to fund a portion of its $7.2 billion acquisition of contract development and manufacturing organization Patheon, including the repayment of indebtedness of Patheon to be assumed by Thermo Fisher.
Goldman Sachs is acting as lead book-running manager for the offering. BofA Merrill Lynch and Citigroup are acting as joint book-running managers. Thermo Fisher said it will grant the underwriters an option for a period of 30 days to purchase up to $225 million of additional shares of its common stock. All of the shares in the offering are to be sold by the firm.
In a separate announcement, Thermo Fisher also said that its wholly owned subsidiary, Thermo Fisher (CN) Luxembourg S.à r.l., has extended the offering period for acquiring Patheon to coordinate with the timing of the two remaining regulatory approvals in the EU and Brazil.
The company's anti-trust filing was submitted to the EU on July 19, 2017, initiating a review period of 25 business days, which is set to expire on Aug. 25. In Brazil, competition authorities have approved the acquisition and are awaiting the expiration of a 15-day comment period, which is set to end on Aug. 22.
Thermo Fisher said it has already received regulatory approval for the deal in the US and Canada, and expects to complete the transaction around the end of the third quarter of 2017.