Just another billion-dollar exit for a Massachusetts company most people have never heard of. This one has an interesting backstory, in a field rife with consolidation and would-be deals.
HeartWare International said Monday it is being acquired by medical device giant Medtronic for $1.1 billion in cash. At $58 a share, that’s a 93 percent premium over HeartWare’s (NASDAQ: [[ticker:HTWR]]) closing price on Friday. As of midday, the company’s stock is trading at around $57.50 a share. The deal is expected to close by October.
HeartWare makes a miniature implantable pump used to keep the heart beating in patients with heart failure. The Framingham, MA-based company is led by CEO Doug Godshall, a former senior executive at Boston Scientific.
This isn’t the first time someone big has tried to acquire HeartWare. In early 2009, Pleasanton, CA-based Thoratec agreed to buy the company for $282 million in cash and stock. But the Federal Trade Commission blocked the deal, citing anticompetitive and antitrust reasons, and the companies called it off. Since then, HeartWare has built itself up, and Thoratec was acquired by St. Jude Medical for $3.3 billion last year. Meanwhile, St. Jude is being acquired by Abbott Laboratories for some $25 billion.
Medtronic is no stranger to big deals, of course. In January 2015, the company completed its nearly $50 billion acquisition of Covidien, which effectively moved Medtronic’s executive headquarters from Minneapolis, MN, to Dublin, Ireland.
HeartWare’s stock price had been falling since it peaked last summer. In January, the company called off its own proposed acquisition of Valtech Cardio, saying HeartWare “finds itself in a different set of circumstances than when we first entered into the agreement.”
