Invitrogen究竟會不會保留質譜業務？

在Invitrogen宣布將以67億美元收購ABI公司之后，人們的議論就一直沒有停止。現在大家又開始津津樂道地討論Invitrogen保留ABI質譜業務的理由，以及它是否會很快拋棄這部分業務。

盡管ABI是質譜業務的行業領先者，但是近年來這部分業務正急速下滑，而它的競爭者：賽默飛世爾科技和Waters在質譜技術創新上占據了主要地位，安捷倫也搶走了其部分市場份額。人們開始擔心ABI是否能扭轉這種局面。

在上星期的電話會議中，Invitrogen CEO Greg Lucier對于新公司質譜業務的態度也有點含糊。當被問到如果有機會，他是否會賣掉這部分業務時，他謝絕對這種可能性做出評價，并表示“會繼續運營這部分業務”。

Lucier表示收購中有90％是“完美的契合”，但質譜不是。他表示，理想的狀況是客戶在購買了一臺儀器之后，會持續購買大量的試劑。但是，“質譜儀不大符合這種理想狀況，所以我只說90％是完美的契合，而另外10％也是很好的業務，我們打算繼續運行。”

但是這些話并沒有減輕華爾街的擔心，他們擔心ABI衰退的質譜業務會損害這場交易。評論家Peter McDonald認為，近年來ABI沒有推出任何新的有意義的質譜平臺，這很讓投資者擔心。“每個人都在等待一臺新儀器的出現，但是卻始終沒有。”

ABI也意識到了這一點，它計劃補充儀器產品線，在下個月推出新的質譜儀。在上周的電話會議上，ABI公司的董事長兼COO Mark Stevenson也表示這些計劃將繼續進行。

近年來質譜銷售量的停滯不前對ABI來說也是壞消息。在過去連續6個季度中，儀器的銷售增長在持續下降，在上一季度，即1～3月，質譜的銷售額增長不到1％。

德意志銀行分析家Ross Muken在一篇研究評論中寫到，Invitrogen對ABI感興趣的最主要原因是能夠獲得它的SOLiD測序平臺，從而進入新一代測序市場。Invitrogen想要維持質譜業務是一個大難題。他表示：“如果你把質譜業務擺在新公司中，你就會很清楚發現它不適合。而且它與新公司的其他業務沒有互補的地方。”

Muken補充說，Invitrogen在改善ABI質譜業務上也能力有限。因為ABI是與MDS合資經營的，質譜的研發主要是依靠MDS這家加拿大公司。

實際上，收購提議對于ABI與MDS的伙伴關系有什么樣的影響現在還不清楚。Invitrogen及ABI的官員在電話會議上都沒有對這件事做出評論。

MDS的發言人Janet Ko表示公司會照常開展業務。MDS評價這個事件是“我們合資伙伴的好消息，并相信Invitrogen有杰出的管理團隊，期望與它們共同發展ABI/MDS的合資。”

同時，人們開始推測新公司將最終賣掉質譜業務，最快在1年半之內。Muken表示估價在13億～15億美元質檢，但可能的買家非常有限。他說：“這是一個非常有吸引力的資源，但并不是很多人能夠買得起，或有這個能力來處理它。”

分析家表示，普遍認為如果合并后的公司決定放棄質譜業務，MDS似乎是最有可能的投標者，盡管MDS現在還不具備這樣的資源來進行這筆大買賣。其它的潛在買家可能包括安捷倫、賽默飛世爾或外國公司如日立或島津。

參考英文原文

Invitrogen Deal to Acquire ABI Leads to Mass Speculation About Mass Spec Business

[June 20, 2008]    By Tony Fong     Editor, ProteoMonitor

NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) - As the dust settles from last week’s announcement of Invitrogen’s bid to acquire Applied Biosystems for $6.7 billion, questions continue to swirl around Invitrogen’s rationale for keeping ABI’s mass spectrometry business, and whether the company has plans to quickly jettison the segment.
 
While ABI is the current industry leader in mass spec sales, it is in the midst of a sharp slowdown that has raised concern about ABI’s ability to turn the unit around, particularly as competitors such as Thermo Fisher Scientific and Waters move to take the lead in technological innovation and Agilent Technologies takes market share away with its continuing push into the space.
 
During last week’s conference call announcing the proposed deal, Invitrogen CEO Greg Lucier was opaque when discussing plans for the new company’s mass-spec business. When asked whether he was open to selling it if the opportunity was there, he declined to comment on that possibility and said, “We’re going to run that business. We’re going to run it for success with our partner, and it is business as usual.”
 
Lucier said that while 90 percent of the acquisition is “an absolutely perfect fit,” mass specs are not. The ideal situation, he said, would be a sales flow in which customers would need to buy large amounts of reagents for use on the newly acquired instruments. Only, “a mass spec instrument doesn’t quite fit that description,“ Lucier said. “So my comment was 90 percent of [the deal] is a perfect fit, and the 10 percent [remaining] is still a very good business, and we intend to run it,” he said.
 
That has done little to quell Wall Street’s worries that ABI’s flagging mass-spec business could hurt the deal. Peter McDonald, an analyst at Wall Street Access, told GenomeWeb Daily News sister publication ProteoMonitor this week that the lack of any new meaningful mass spec platform from ABI in recent years is a particular concern for investors.
 
“Everyone’s been waiting for a new instrument and they haven’t had anything in the near term,” he said.
 
Aware of this, ABI plans to replenish its instrument portfolio and recently company officials said new mass specs will be hitting the market in coming months. During last week’s conference call, Mark Stevenson, president and COO of Applied Biosystems, said that those plans will proceed.
 
Plateauing mass-spec sales in recent quarters have also been bad news for ABI. For the past six consecutive quarters, sales growth for the instruments has steadily declined, and in the last completed quarter, ending March 31 – ABI’s fiscal third quarter – mass spec sales grew less than 1 percent.
 
Ross Muken, an analyst with Deutsche Bank, wrote in a research note that the key reason for Invitrogen’s interest in ABI is to acquire its SOLiD sequencing platform and gain access to the next-generation sequencing market.
 
Invitrogen’s desire to keep the mass-spec business, however, is “a head-scratcher,” Muken wrote.
 
“As you look at mass spec within the new [company] it’s a clear standout that does not fit,” Muken said to ProteoMonitor. “And it really has no complementary pieces with the rest of the Invitrogen/ABI combination.”
 
Invitrogen is also limited in its ability to improve ABI’s mass-spec business, Muken added, because ABI has a joint-venture agreement with MDS Analytical Technologies on the instruments and depends on the Canadian firm for mass spec R&D.
 
Indeed, the effect of the proposed acquisition on ABI’s partnership with MDS is unclear. Neither Invitrogen nor ABI officials provided any insight into the matter during the conference call.
 
Janet Ko, a spokeswoman for MDS, told ProteoMonitor in an e-mail that it will continue to do business as usual. MDS views the deal “as good news for our [joint-venture] partner [and] believes Invitrogen has an excellent management team, and we look forward to working with them to grow the ABI/MDS joint venture,” she said.
 
Meanwhile, speculation has begun that the new company, which will adopt the Applied Biosystems name, will eventually sell the mass spec business, perhaps as quickly as within 18 months. But with an estimated price tag of between $1.3 billion to $1.5 billion, the list of potential buyers is limited, Muken said.
 
“It’s an attractive asset but there’s not a long list of people who can afford it or would be in a position at this point to be able to do something to transact it,” he said.
 
The consensus view is that MDS appears to be the most likely bidder to buy out ABI if the combined company decides to divest its mass-spec business, although MDS currently doesn’t have the resources to make such a purchase, analysts have said. Other potential buyers could include Agilent, Thermo Fisher, or foreign firms, such as Hitachi or Shimadzu.