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Danaher’s new dental arm Envista takes flight

CEO and President of Envista, Amir Aghdaei (center), opened trading at the New York Stock Exchange on Sept. 20 to mark the successful spinoff of Danaher's dental arm. (Image: New York Stock Exchange)
Jeremy Booth, Dental Tribune International

Jeremy Booth, Dental Tribune International

Thu. 26. September 2019

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NEW YORK, USA: Danaher Corp. has successfully spun off its dental businesses into the company Envista Holdings in a successful public share offering that closed on Sept. 20. With the dental companies Nobel Biocare, Ormco and KaVo Kerr now under its wing, Envista has a unified global portfolio that will allow it to compete with other dental giants Dentsply Sirona and Straumann.

Amir Aghdaei, CEO and President of Envista, rang the opening bell of the New York Stock Exchange to signal the beginning of trading on Friday Sept. 20. Flanked by colleagues and special guests above the trading floors at 11 Wall Street in lower Manhattan, Aghdaei and his team had something to celebrate.

Formerly the Danaher group executive responsible for its dental segment, Aghdaei will now lead Envista, bolstered by a strong initial public offering (IPO) that saw its stock debut at $25.65 despite having been priced at $22.00 per share by parent company Danaher on the eve of the IPO.

Envista appeared on the New York Stock Exchange under the NVST ticker symbol on Sept. 18 seeking to raise at least $580 million by floating over 26.7 million shares. Envista gave underwriters the option to purchase more than 4.015 million additional shares in a 30-day period at the initial public price if they wished to do so. Announcing the closure of the IPO to investors, Envista said the underwriters had exercised this option in full, meaning that 30,783,200 shares had been sold in the IPO, and that Danaher now holds around 80.6% of the company. Had the underwriters chosen not to acquire the additional shares, Danaher would have been left with an 82.7% share of Envista’s total stock.

Envista said the net proceeds from the IPO, which have been paid to parent Danaher as “partial consideration for the dental business,” amounted to approximately $643.4 million.

What does this mean for dentistry?

Envista is now a global dental products platform comprising the dental companies Nobel Biocare, Ormco and KaVo Kerr. Envista says its portfolio of dental services, consumables and equipment meets an estimated 90% of the clinical needs of dentists, and that its three operating companies serve over 1 million dentists in more than 150 countries. According to the medical technology news agency Vantage, Danaher’s management hopes that its spinoff of Envista will allow the new company more freedom to form partnerships and make further deals.

“The successful IPO was also a win for the dental establishment”

In 2018, Danaher’s dental unit, which is now Envista, posted revenues of over $2.8 billion for the full year, with operating profit from the dental segment being $346.7 million. Danaher first announced its plans for Envista in late July 2018.

The successful IPO was also a win for the dental establishment, considering the shaky debut of orthodontics startup SmileDirectClub (SDC). The Nashville-based at-home orthodontics company floated over 58 million shares on Sept. 12. SDC upped the price of its shares to $23 per share from a previously announced price range of $19–$22 on the eve of its IPO. The first day of trading saw SDC’s shares suffer a steep 27% loss to close at less than $16.67 on the day. This was the third-biggest slide in share value in the history of IPOs valued at at least $100 million, according to Dr. Jay Ritter, a business professor at the University of Florida, the Financial Times reported.

The two IPOs, held just a week apart from one another, rate in the top five largest medical technology IPOs in history and are the two largest ever seen in dentistry.

Danaher Dental business Dental stocks Envista Smiledirectclub Stock market

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