Danaher Steps Up Downsizing, Announces $1.1 Billion Acquisition

   DOW JONES NEWSWIRES 
 

Danaher Corp. (DHR) plans to step up its restructuring program, eliminating about 3,300 jobs and closing some 30 facilities.

At the same time, the industrial conglomerate said it agreed to buy MDS Inc.'s (MDZ) analytical-techonologies business and a 50% stake in a joint venture for $650 million. Its shares jumped 28% premarket to $7.50. Danaher will pay Life Technologies Corp. (LIFE) $450 million for the rest of the stake in AB SCIEX, a mass-spectrometry business.

In addtion, Danaher President and Chief Executive H. Lawrence Culp Jr. said the company is optimistic about "continuing signs of stabilization" in the first two months of the current quarter and is encouraged about sequential improvement in orders at some of its businesses.

Danaher - whose operations including making bar-code readers, leak-detection systems and Sears Holdings Corp.'s (SHLD) Craftsman tools - now expects restructuring expenses of $225 million to $250 million this year, aiming to save about $220 million a year. The company previously estimated restructuring costs at $150 million to $170 million for the year.

Late last year Danaher had planned to cut 1,700 positions and 13 facilities. Danaher has some 50,000 employees.

The MDS deal, which will include that company returning up to $450 million of the purchase price to its shareholders, is for a global supplier of drug discovery and life-sciences research tools. MDS said Wednesday it also intends to sell its operations which help the early stage of drug development. If sold, that would leave MDS as a provider of medical isotopes.

The purchases will boost Danaher's medical revenue to more than $2 billion.

Its shares closed Tuesday at $60.42 and were inactive premarket.

-By Tess Stynes, Dow Jones Newswires; 212-416-2481; [e-mail]