Millipore Corp. (MIL) yesterday announced the acquisition of the remaining 60% ownership of its joint-venture in India, Millipore India Pvt. Ltd. The new subsidiary will enable Millipore to invest in initiatives that will drive growth and expand its leadership in India’s thriving life science market.
 
According to the management, over the years India has experienced unprecedented levels of investment and expansion in its biotechnology, pharmaceutical, and life science research industries. The Indian government has invested $1.7 billion to grow the country’s life science and biotechnology industries and several Indian companies have emerged as global competitors in the biopharmaceutical industry. Thus, establishing direct operations in the country will help Millipore execute its strategy more efficiently. It will also facilitate the company leverage its unique capabilities to accelerate growth and support the growing customer base in this dynamic market.
 
The acquisition will have minimal impact on Millipore’s 2009 earnings per share but is expected to be accretive in future years due to the elimination of the non-controlling interest. The transaction will not affect Millipore’s reported revenues and operating costs since the joint venture has been consolidated into Millipore’s financial statements since 2006.
 
During the third quarter of 2009, Millipore’s Bioscience division proved to be resilient and generated above market growth even in the difficult market environment. Pharma spending remains sluggish and it’s difficult to sell out instrumentation right now. But the division’s performance improved modestly from the last quarter and is growing faster than most peers in 2009.
 
Although, 2009 will not only be a year of very attractive financial performance from Millipore, we believe that it’s a year marked by targeted investments that will help it to underpin the organic revenue growth in the future.
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