Trimedx to buy Aramark unit in $300M health tech merger

Dive Brief:

Trimedx is set to buy Aramark's healthcare technologies business for $300 million, in a deal that covers a business that helps healthcare facilities source and maintain medical equipment.
Trimedx predicts the takeover will expand the customer base of its own healthcare technology management services business.
The deal is expected to close in the fourth quarter.

Dive Insight:

Trimedx provides clinical engineering services and clinical asset management to healthcare clients. That line of business puts Trimedx in competition with Aramark, which provides clinical engineering services and healthcare technology repair and maintenance support. Aramark bought its way into the sector through the 2011 takeovers of Masterplan and ReMedPar.

The acquisitions and subsequent efforts to grow the division have left Aramark with a business that serves more than 500 U.S. healthcare providers. These providers rely on Aramark for advice about healthcare technology purchases and upgrades, plus the maintenance of existing equipment.

Trimedx will now offer these services alongside its own clinical engineering and asset management programs. In explaining the motivation for the deal, Trimedx CEO Henry Hummel said it would enable his team "to bring our technology and service model to a greater number of healthcare providers, delivering a comprehensive and differentiated clinical asset management program." Trimedx's legacy business serves 1,800 healthcare facilities and has serviced more than 1 million medical devices.

Hummel and his team now face the task of incorporating Aramark's unit into their operation. Sales at Aramark’s healthcare division, which covers the technologies business and units that provide other services, fell by 2% last year. Aramark attributed the decline to "the impact of lost business." It also picked out "growth in base business within our technologies business" as the main positive point for the division.

Despite that, Aramark has decided its overall operation is best served by cashing out of the healthcare technology field. The exit frees Aramark to focus on its core food, facilities and uniforms businesses, which services healthcare and other industries including education and leisure.