WARNER-LAMBERT's SALE OF IMED TO HENLEY GROUP COMPLETES DIVESTITURE

Executive Summary

WARNER-LAMBERT's SALE OF IMED TO HENLEY GROUP COMPLETES DIVESTITURE of the firm's health technologies businesses. W-L's board approved the sale for a cash price of $163.5 mil., the company announced April 25, adding that a definitive agreement has been signed by both companies. IMED posted sales "in excess of $100 mil." in 1985, according to W-L. Henley, which recently filed a registration statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission, was conceived late last year as an independent company to own and operate a number of businesses being divested by Allied-Signal, including Fisher Scientific and Instrumentation Labs. Excluding IMED, Henley has assets of approximately $4 bil. and annual sales in excess of $3 bil. In addition to Fisher and Instrumentation Labs, the Henley Group consists of "Allied industrial chemical companies, former engineering-related Signal companies, and some smaller manufacturing companies that have been in the family of Allied or Signal," the spokesman said. Warner-Lambert took about eight months to divest its health technologies businesses. Last August, the company sold its clinical lab diagnostics business to Akzo. In March, the company announced the sale of Deseret to Becton Dickinson ("The Pink Sheet" March 10, In Brief) and the sale of Reichert Instruments to Cambridge Instrument Company PLC of England.