August 30, 2021 – Baxter International Inc. (Deerfield, IL) is in advanced talks to buy medical-equipment maker Hill-Rom Holdings Inc. (Chicago, IL) for around $150 per share, people familiar with the matter reported to the Wall Street Journal.
At that share price, the deal would value Hill-Rom at around $10 billion. The deal could be reached by midweek assuming the talks don’t fall apart, the people said.
Baxter is a medical-technology company that focuses on areas including critical care, nutrition and surgical products
These discussions follow a bid from Baxter in July worth $144 per share that Hill-Rom rebuffed. Hill-Rom shares jumped at the news of that bid and have remained elevated. They closed Friday at $132.90 pre share.
Overall U.S. deal activity has roughly tripled so far this year to nearly $2 trillion as the economy bounces back from the pandemic-triggered slowdown, reports the Wall Street Journal.
There has been a boom in healthcare merger activity this year as companies in the industry jockey for scale and other benefits that deals bring, in many cases taking advantage of elevated stock prices used as currency. They have struck $399 billion of takeover deals in the U.S. so far this year, more than double last year’s pace, according to Dealogic.