Italy’s Lima Corporate spa, an international leader in the design, production and distribution of orthopaedic prothesis, is shopping in the US, MF-Milano Finanza wrtoe in the last few days.
The Italian company, controlled by Ardian private equity firm with minority stakes owned by Imi Investimenti sgr and Mir Capital (a joint venture by Intesa Sanpaolo bank and Russian Gazprombank) will actually acquire some assets from US groups Zimmer and Biomet, put on sale by the two groups producing orthopaedic implants and related surgical products as a committment with the EU Antitrust Authority in order to have its go ahead to their projected merger which will lead to creation of the second world player in the sector after Johnson&Johnson (see here the EU Antitrust Authority press release).
More in detail, Zimmer (which is acquiring Biomet) offered to divest the Zimmer Unicondylar Knee implant and Biomet’s Discovery Elbow divisions, both across the EEA, and the Biomet Vanguard total Knee system for primary and revision implants in Denmark and Sweden.
Founded in 1945 by Gabriele Lualdi and headquartered in Villanova di San Daniele (near Udine in Northern Italy), Lima Corporate will enlarge its products portfolios in Europe thanks to the deal.
The company counts about 600 employees, three production plants (in Italy and San Marino) and subsidiaris in 19 countries. Lima Corporate reached 145 million euros in consolidated revenues in 2014 at constant exchange rates (of which about 75% from exports), 11% up from 2013.
Ardian private equity form, managed in Italy by partner Nicolò Saidelli, acquired its controlling stake in Lima Corporate in 2012 together with Imi Investimenti sgr, while the Lualdi family remained with a 34% stake. In Novembre 2012 the funds appointed Luigi Ferrari as the new ceo of the company. Since then Ferrari had been heading the Global Orthopedics Business Unit of Orthofix International, a Nasdaq-listed company with a market capitalization of about 750 million dollars back then. In October 2013 Mir Capital bought part of Imi Investimenti sgr’s stake (see here the press release).
