3M has agreed to buy Acelity, a San Antonio-based wound care products company that recently filed to go public, for $6.7 billion from Apax Partners, CPP Investment Board and PSP Investments.
Why it matters: This is a high-priced reminder that 3M has become much more than Scotch Tape and Post-it notes, with health care already accounting for 18% of its $32 billion in annual revenue. Acelity will only add to that, with a top-line of nearly $1.5 billion last year.
What's next: Expect Acelity to pull its IPO registration, which it had submitted last month as KCI Holdings.
"The consortium had been working with Acelity and KCI since 2011 on a strategic mergers and acquisition program that included targeted acquisitions, such as Systagenix in 2013 and Crawford Healthcare in 2018, and disposals of non-core businesses, such as the LifeCell business unit, which was sold for $2.9 billion in 2017."
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