March 28, 2014       M&A offer for Crabtree Technology portfolio holding Nordion
After the close of trading today, privately held Sterigenics offered to buy Crabtree holding Nordion (ticker: NDZ) for $11.75/share, a 12% premium from $10.41, the price at which Nordion closed today. Sterigenics is owned by GTCR (“Golder Thoma”) LLC, a well known Chicago-based private equity firm. Sterigenics is a global leader in medical sterilization procedures and is based in Deerfield Illinois. Nordion’s board of directors has unanimously approved the transaction and strongly urges Nordion shareholders to approve it as well. The offer is an all-cash deal, backed by debt financing and Sterigenics’ cash holdings. We’ll review the transaction further in the coming few days to decide whether to sell our position right away, or hold until closing, which is estimated to be sometime in the second half of calendar 2014. The most likely outcome is that we’ll hold our NDZ stock until our next scheduled re-balance in mid- to late-May, 2014.