Catalent to Buy Bettera Holdings for $1 Billion
As part of a drive to complement its consumer health technology platform with a wider range of technologies and ready-to-market product libraries, as well as a variety of packaging options, US CDMO Catalent has announced plans to acquire Plano, Texas-based US company Bettera Holdings for $1 billion. The all-cash transaction, it said, is “subject to customary adjustments.”
Bettera is a major manufacturer in the high-growth gummy, soft chew, and lozenge segments of the nutritional supplements market and currently a portfolio company of private equity investor Highlander Partners. Catalent said the acquisition will complement and accelerate the growth of its global softgel and oral dose formulation and manufacturing business. The New Jersey-based company regards itself as “the leading global innovator” in the same field.
With four production facilities across the country, Catalent said the Texas firm is a market leader in this segment, with “broad and difficult-to-replicate expertise in developing and producing consumer-preferred products for nutraceutical, functional and botanical ingredients.”
The new subsidiary will complement and leverage Catalent’s network of consumer health manufacturing sites across North and South America, Europe and Japan, offering formulation development, delivery and supply solutions to the global consumer health and beauty markets. The combination of the two portfolios is expected to unlock “significant commercial synergies,” the company said.
With the transaction, expected to close before the end of 2021, the CDMO will take over “substantially all” of the Bettera Holdings’ approximately 500 employees, product development, manufacturing and packaging assets as well as production facilities in the US states of California, Indiana, New Jersey and Virginia.
Catalent said it will pay the purchase price at closing using a combination of cash on hand, existing credit facilities and, depending on market conditions, new debt financing. Completion of the deal “is not contingent on any financing activity,” it added.
Author: Dede Williams, Freelance Journalist
