A storm may be brewing in the medtech industry, as manufacturer Zeus Company is reportedly planning to bring the thunder in a sale to a new owner.
South Carolina-based Zeus is in “the early stages of a sale process,” several unnamed people familiar with the matter told Reuters in a report this week, noting that potential purchasers could include private equity firms as well as strategic buyers.
The company is currently in conversations with Goldman Sachs to determine whether a sale makes financial sense, the sources said. If the sale process continues, it could reportedly give Zeus a valuation of at least $4 billion, including debt; according to the sources, the company’s annual earnings are hovering around the $200 million mark.
Zeus has yet to officially announce its intent to sell, and the sources told Reuters that it could still decide to back out of the potential auction.
Zeus was founded in 1966 and has spent the nearly 60 years since then developing a wide range of polymer extrusions and other custom-designed tubing products. Its components are used across the aerospace, automotive, energy and other industries, but much of Zeus’ work since its founding has focused on the medical industry.
Within the medtech sector, Zeus produces catheter components, including its “ultra-thin” PTFE Sub-Lite-Wall tubing, which is used to line the inside of lead delivery systems, and its FluoroPEELZ sleeves, which offer an easy-to-peel alternative to the typical heat shrink wrappings found on the outer shafts of catheters when they’re shipped to devicemakers.
Zeus is also the parent company of CathX Medical, a Silicon Valley-based medical device contract manufacturer that was founded in 2020 to provide devicemakers with catheter design engineering services, while also conducting rapid prototyping, manufacturing and assembly of those newly engineered devices. Zeus acquired the company for an undisclosed amount in 2021.
If it does indeed proceed with a sale, Zeus won’t be the only longstanding medical component maker to hit the auction block this year.
At the end of May, for one, Swedish devicemaker Getinge agreed to shell out about $120 million in upfront cash—with another $170 million on the table in potential milestone payments—for High Purity New England. The 21-year-old Rhode Island company makes single-use assemblies, lab pumps, sensors, bioreactor systems, chromatography columns and other technologies customized to the needs of its biopharma clients.