Holliston, MA 12/3/07 and 12/14/07; Washington, DC 12/12/07—Harvard Bioscience has rejected an acquisition offer from Skystone Advisors. On December 12, Skystone, which holds 15.4% of Harvard Bioscience’s stock, made an offer to acquire the company and take it private. In a letter to the Harvard Bioscience Board, Skystone stated it would acquire all the outstanding shares for $5 per share. The offer represents a 20% premium over the stock’s closing price on December 10. Skystone wrote that it has been “generally supportive of management” but that “in order for the Company to begin to realize its potential, we believe the Company needs to execute a plan to roughly double its revenue and pretax profits within the next three years. With single-digit organic growth, the Company can only achieve this growth through aggressive accretive acquisitions.” Skystone stated that the inconsistent timing of acquisitions, the company’s “capital constraints” and “the distractions” of being a public company would undermine the company’s current strategy. In rejecting the offer, Board of Harvard Bioscience stated that the offer undervalued the company and that the company’s current strategy will deliver better value to the stockholders. Earlier in the month, Harvard Bioscience sold the Genomic Solutions and Maia Scientific businesses of its discontinued Capital Equipment unit to molecular spectroscopy provider Digilab in an asset purchase agreement. Digilab paid $1 million in cash and Harvard Bioscience will receive an earn-out based on 20% of the revenue generated over three years. Harvard Bioscience retains the rights to certain deferred tax assets and to the COPAS flow cytometry product line, which it also intends to sell.