Waltham, MA and Sunnyvale, CA 12/13/10—Thermo Fisher Scientific has announced an offer to acquire all of the outstanding shares of Dionex for $118.50 per share in cash for a total purchase price of approximately $2.1 billion. The offer is a 21% premium over the closing price of Dionex shares on December 10. Thermo will use cash on hand and committed financing. Dionex provides ion chromatography and HPLC instruments, consumables and software and had fiscal 2010 sales of $419.6 million (see IBO 8/31/10). “Dionex’s strength in chromatography instruments, software and consumables complements our leading positions in mass spectrometry and laboratory information management systems,” stated Thermo Fisher Scientific President and CEO Marc N. Casper. “Specifically, it complements our strong presence in China, where we’ve established the headquarters for our global environmental instruments business and continue to build our commercial infrastructure to meet the needs of customers in growing water quality, consumer safety and life sciences markets.” In the third year following the close of the transaction, Thermo expects to realize operating synergies of $60 million per year consisting of $40 million in cost-related synergies and $20 million in adjusted operating income from revenue-related synergies. The transaction is expected to be immediately accretive to Thermo’s EPS by $0.13–$0.15 in the first 12 months. The acquisition is expected to be completed in the first quarter of 2011.