Warsaw-based Biomet Inc. will be back on the public markets later this year.
The Indianapolis Business Journal reports today that the group of private equity funds that acquired Biomet in June 2007, has filed to take the company back onto the public markets. The plan is to sell $100 million in stock later this year.
Biomet is today owned by Blackstone Group, Goldman Sachs, KKR & Co. and TPG Capital.
The IBJ called the owners timing “poor” in their first attempt to publicly trade stocks, which happened just 3 months after paying $11.4 billion for Biomet and after orthopedic implant makers settled with the U.S. Department of Justice to alter consulting relationships with surgeons.
This time, Biomet’s owners are hitting the orthopedics market on the upswing, reports the IBJ, citing Bernstein Research analyst Lisa Clive. In a March 7 report to investors, Clive noted domestic consumer sentiment continues to strengthen, which suggests more Americans will continue to go back to get the hip and knee replacements they put off during the prolonged economic downturn.
That trend emerged in the second half of 2013 and now looks like it will continue throughout this year. Clive predicts U.S. knee implant sales will grow 5 percent and hip sales 6 percent this year, excluding currency fluctuations.
Biomet’s sales of knee implants have grown faster than the industry the past two years, according to Clive. Biomet sales of hip implants equaled the industry’s in 2013 and exceeded it the year before.
Deutsche Bank analyst Kristen Stewart estimates the value of Biomet’s entire business is still at $11 billion to $13 billion — not far from the price the owners paid seven years ago.