DCC, the fuel-to-technology distributor, has agreed to buy Dublin-based medical and surgical devices company Iskus Health in a multimillion-euro deal to beef up the group’s healthcare division, its smallest unit by earnings.
The deal was disclosed in a filing with the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (CCPC), which must clear the deal.
DCC said in a statement that Iskus Health, which sells single-use equipment from surgical gowns to biopsy needles, is complementary to its existing Fannin Limited business in the Republic. This will be the focus of competition authorities as they investigate the deal.
A spokesman for DCC and spokeswoman for Iskus Health, which posted an operating profit of €2.29 million on €18.4 million of sales, declined to comment on the financial details of the transaction.
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The Iskus Health spokeswoman said the company’s co-founder, chairman and main shareholder Alan Tate, who owns almost 72 per cent of the business, will retire once the sale has been completed. He previously worked for 20 years with US-headquartered Baxter Healthcare.
Managing director and co-founder Michael Dempsey, who owns more than 22 per cent of the company and is also a Baxter alumnus, and co-founder of Iskus Health UK Stuart Murray will remain with the business.
“While the CCPC completes its review each company will continue to operate as normal, and it will be business as usual for their employees and customers,” the spokeswoman said. “As the transaction is subject to approval from the CCPC, neither party will be commenting further at this time.”
Iskus Health was founded in 2000. DCC’s existing Fannin business traces its roots back to 1829, evolving from being a medical library and reading room to become “one of Ireland’s leading suppliers of a wide range of pharmaceuticals and medical devices”, according to its website.
DCC Healthcare is DCC’s smallest unit by earnings, generating operating profits of £88.1 million (€105.1 million) in the financial year to March. The unit is made up of a DCC Vital, a medical products and devices business in which Fannin is based, and DCC Health & Beauty Solutions, which focuses developing and manufacturing nutritional supplements and beauty products for brand owners.
DCC Energy accounted for more than 70 per cent of the DCC group’s £682.8 million of operating profits in the last financial year. DCC Technology is the third division.
DCC, led by chief executive Donal Murphy, set out two years ago to double its operating profits and lower the proportion of business coming from the sale of fossil fuels by the end of the decade, as it set off on a journey to cut carbon emissions from its energy business to net zero by 2050.
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