Trinity raising €92m for buys

Specialist healthcare services company Trinity Biotech has announced its intention to raise almost $100m (€92m), to fund potential acquisitions.

The Bray-headquartered/Nasdaq-quoted company, which makes medical testing kits for a range of conditions including HIV, Lyme disease, diabetes and cardiac ailments, is raising the funds via senior notes, or bonds, with a 30-year maturity date and a 4% annual interest rate.

The raising is via a private offering to qualified institutional buyers and initial purchasers of the debt will also have a 30-day option to buy up to an additional $15m amount of the notes.

Trinity expects to generate net proceeds of around $96.4m from the move, but this could rise to $110.9m, depending on the appetite for the additional offer.

In a statement, the company said it currently expects to use the net proceeds from the bond offering to fund “potential future acquisitions and for general corporate purposes, which may include continued product development and commercialisation”.

Last month, Trinity Biotech — which operates from four facilities in the US and a sales office in the UK — reported full-year group revenues of $104.9m for 2014; marking a 15% increase on the preceding year.

Operating profit grew from $17.2m to just over $18m, while after-tax profits inched higher from $17.1m to $17.2m.

Point-of-care revenues increased from $19.8m in 2013, to $20m last year, representing an increase of 1.4%.

The increase in figures was driven by what management called particularly strong growth in its core business, plus higher revenues from Immco Diagnostics, the New York business it purchased two years ago and which was completely integrated into the main business during the last 12 months.

Since its establishment, in the early 1990s, Trinity Biotech has amassed a portfolio of around 40 products, via organic product growth and through acquisition.

Trinity — which also employs around 500 people in Ireland, Britain and North America — pays annual rent of around €786,000 on its three-building headquarters at the IDA Ireland Business Park, in Bray; a building recently put up for sale and expected to fetch €9m when sold.

The Bray firm’s shares were trading at around $17.45 (up around 0.4%) in afternoon trading, Irish time, yesterday.