The Carlyle Group has all but clinched a deal to buy Johnson & Johnson’s clinical testing arm for about $4.1 billion after several weeks of negotiations, a person briefed on the matter said on Wednesday.
A transaction could be announced as soon as Thursday, this person added. Any deal would involve nearly $1 billion in cash from the private equity firm’s latest leveraged buyout fund and about $3.3 billion in debt financing.
Carlyle emerged as the lead bidder late last month after an auction process that Johnson & Johnson has run for the division, which had drawn both private equity bidders and corporate suitors. Johnson & Johnson has been looking to sell slower-growing businesses as it focuses on higher-growth opportunities.
The business, known as Ortho Clinical Diagnostics, runs several medical tests, most prominently those for blood.
Carlyle has struck a number of health care deals in recent years, including a $3.9 billion takeover, with Hellman & Friedman, of the clinical drug testing company Pharmaceutical Product Development more than two years ago, and a $6.3 billion acquisition of the nursing home operator ManorCare in 2007.
News of the state of negotiations was reported earlier by The Wall Street Journal.
