Exponent announces sale of BBI Group to Novo Holdings

Original from BBI Group

Author: Group Communications

Exponent announces that it has reached an agreement to sell BBI Group (“BBI”), a leading supplier of products and services to the global diagnostics and life sciences industries, to Novo Holdings A/S, a leading global life sciences investor, for an enterprise value of over ￡400 million.

Founded in 1986, BBI provides critical reagents and immunoassay development, lateral flow development, diagnostic manufacturing services, and smartphone reader technologies to a global blue-chip customer base that includes Thermo-Fisher, Merck and Siemens. The company’s market-leading brand, BBI Solutions, provides a range of products, including antibodies, antigens, labels, complementary reagents and point of care tests. BBI is headquartered in South Wales and employs over 400 employees across its sites in seven countries and four continents.

Exponent acquired BBI as a corporate carve-out from US-listed Alere (now Abbott) in 2015. During its ownership, Exponent has transformed BBI into one of the world’s leading diagnostics platforms with a comprehensive suite of solutions for its growing and diversified client base. Over the last five years, BBI has strengthened its management team, expanded its presence in the US, built operations in China, successfully completed three acquisitions (Novarum™ DX, Maine Biotechnology Services and Diarect) to expand the business’ product portfolio and invested in a state-of-the-art manufacturing facility in Wales. These initiatives have delivered significant revenue growth and an EBITDA CAGR of 22% between 2017 and 2020.

James Gunton, Partner at Exponent, said: “We are delighted with the success of BBI under Exponent’s ownership. We have enjoyed working with Mario and the team over the last five years in transforming BBI into a world-class diagnostics platform for the healthcare and life sciences industry. We wish both the management team and Novo Holdings every success for the future and look forward to seeing the company continue to prosper.”

Mario Gualano, Group CEO of BBI Group, said: “We are hugely grateful to Exponent for the support we have received over the last five years. We have grown revenues and profitability considerably through investing in our products and services, people, and world-class infrastructure. We now have a fully invested and scalable platform to deliver future growth in a large and fast-growing market.

We are delighted to be working with Novo Holdings, a team with a strong track record and a shared vision for growth and innovation.”

Johan Hueffer, Senior Partner at Novo Holdings, said: “We are proud to be the next owners of BBI. Diagnostics is a very attractive space which, with an enhanced global focus on preventative medicine, will play an increasingly important part in improving health outcomes for patients around the world.  We see tremendous opportunities for both organic and inorganic growth for the company. Novo Holdings is looking forward to contributing its considerable industry expertise and extensive network in supporting the talented team at BBI.”

Alan Peterson OBE, Chairman of BBI Group, said: “I am delighted with the huge progress we have made at BBI in recent years and that under Novo Holdings, the company will continue to be headquartered from our new South Wales centre of excellence.”

Source: https://www.the-bbigroup.com/2021/06/exponent-announces-sale-of-bbi-group-to-novo-holdings/