Clearwater advises on international biotech deal
ADVISORS in Manchester have helped secure a deal between companies based in the US and the Netherlands.
A team from Clearwater Corporate Finance helped broker the undisclosed deal which saw Unilever Ventures, the venture capital arm of Unilever, sell its stake in a Dutch firm called BAC to NASDAQ-listed Life Technologies Corporation.
BAC is a leader in the discovery, development and manufacture of protein purification products.
Global biotechnology business Life Technologies, which had revenues of $3.7bn in 2011, said the deal would enable it to expand its capabilities and product offering in the growing market of biopharmaceutical research and manufacturing.
The team at Clearwater comprised partner Manchester-based Philip Nuttall and senior healthcare analyst Ramesh Jassal in Birmingham, with support from director Nick Horrocks, who advised Unilever Ventures.
Mr Nuttall said: “This deal is the second cross border sale on which we have advised Unilever Ventures in the last 13 months. Both transactions involved the disposal of a business with low revenues, but with recently developed intellectual property and knowhow, to global strategic purchasers.”
Unilever Ventures invested in BAC in 2002, after spinning the technology out from the Unilever Vlaardingen R&D facility in the Netherlands. In 2005 BAC completed a Series A Investment round led by Unilever Ventures and FF&P Private Equity.
