HONG KONG: Japan’s Olympus Corp is definitely close to selling its microscope unit to some private equity firm inside a deal that could retrieve more than 300 billion dollars yen (US$2. two billion), three people with direct knowledge of the situation told Reuters.
Bain Capital has emerged as the frontrunner, said among the people and an individual person with immediate knowledge of the deal.
Carlyle Group plus KKR & Company also submitted binding bids this month for the unit which makes microscopes, industrial endoscopes and x-ray analysers, said three from the people with direct understanding.
Olympus continues to be restructuring in recent years using the aim of focusing exclusively on medical technologies and if this sale is successful, it would be you can actually biggest divestment to date, according to Refinitiv information.
A spokeswoman for Olympus said nothing has been determined at the moment and the firm will make announcements when necessary, declining to reveal further details.
Bain, Carlyle and KKR declined in order to comment. All sources declined to be recognized as the information is confidential.
Olympus, which usually started off as a household microscope producer over a century ago, spun off the unit in April, naming it Evident Corp.
Evident had complete assets worth 143. 3 billion yen by end associated with March and has prediction operating profit of 15. 5 billion dollars yen for the present financial year.
As part of its change, Olympus has invited activist investor ValueAct Capital onto the board, bought many overseas medical-equipment companies and sold the digital camera business that were a long-time money-loser.