The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has cleared the path for the sale of General Electric Co.'s (GE 1.30%) BioPharma unit to Danaher Corp. (DHR -1.84%). The deal was announced in February, 2019. Danaher is a medical company that operates in three segments: life sciences, diagnostics, and environmental & applied solutions.
In a joint statement, the companies announced that signing the consent decree with the FTC has satisfied all needed antitrust requirements, and the deal is expected to close at the end of the month. In addition to the FTC, the statement said the deal has been cleared by the European Commission as well as antitrust authorities from six other countries, including China, Brazil and Israel.
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Transforming the company
Current GE CEO Larry Culp took over that role in September 2018, and previously worked at Danaher. Culp looked to turn around the troubled company by shoring up the balance sheet and strengthening its business segments. The deal for the BioPharma unit is expected to bring in net proceeds of approximately $20 billion for GE.
Culp was quoted as saying: "Today's update represents a critical milestone on our journey to transform GE. The value from this transaction will fortify our considerable sources to de-risk our balance sheet and continue to solidify our financial position."
According to Danaher, GE BioPharma is "a leading provider of instruments, consumables, and software that support the research, discovery, process development and manufacturing workflows of biopharmaceutical drugs."
