Siemens Healthineers AG is considering a sale of its ultrasound business, which could be valued at about $1 billion, according to people familiar with the matter.
The German provider of medical equipment is weighing its options after receiving expressions of interest in the business, the people said, asking not to be identified discussing confidential information. A sale could attract private equity and strategic bidders, the people said.
Deliberations are ongoing, the valuation could change and there’s no certainty of a transaction, according to the people. A representative for Siemens Healthineers declined to comment on a potential sale of the ultrasound business.
“The central aim of the Siemens Healthineers Strategy 2025 is to secure our market leadership beyond 2025,” the representative said in an email.
Shares in Siemens Healthineers closed down 0.57% at 46.98 euros in Frankfurt on Monday, giving the company a market value of 53 billion euros ($63 billion). The stock has risen by more than a quarter over the last 12 months.
Siemens Healthineers’s ultrasound unit sits within its broader imaging division and produces a range of devices that can be used in everything from general scanning to advanced echocardiography. The market for these products declined moderately last year as demand for systems to diagnose and monitor Covid-19 was not enough to counter the drop in routine and elective procedures caused by the pandemic, Siemens Healthineers said in its annual report.
A sale of the ultrasound unit would add to $161 billion worth of health-care transactions globally this year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. That’s up more than 260% on the same period in 2020, when the coronavirus crisis was starting to put dealmaking across sectors on ice.
Siemens Healthineers was involved in one of the largest medical acquisitions of 2020, when it agreed to buy Varian Medical Systems for about $16.4 billion in cash. The deal gives Siemens Healthineers a sizeable market share in the rapidly growing field of cancer treatment and helps the company chart a path toward joining Germany’s bluechip DAX Index.
