Bridgepoint acquires chemical analysis company LGC for £257m

LGC’s products and services are focused on customers in forensic science, pharmaceutical and biotechnology research, development and quality control, food chain and environmental surveillance and safety, life sciences and genomics.

The company is also the UK’s designated National Measurement Institute for chemical and biochemical analysis and is the host organisation for the UK’s Government Chemist function. LGC has around 1,500 employees in 28 laboratories and centres across Europe and at sites in India, China and the US. Forecast revenue for the year ended 31 March 2010 is £130m (€148.2m), having grown at a compound annual growth rate of around 18 per cent over the last decade. For the year ended 31 March 2009 LGC had revenues of £119.6m (€136.3m) and EBITDA of £19.9m (€22.7m).

Chris Busby, partner at Bridgepoint responsible for investments in the business services sector, said, “LGC is strongly placed for further growth on the back of increasing regulation and the trend to outsourcing within both the public and private sectors.  We will work with LGC, as the leader with a strong service-based reputation, to support its  consolidation of the market as it begins to make focused acquisitions to build scale in the UK and internationally.”

Private equity firms BC Partners and Doughty Hanson were reported to have been in the running to take over LGC before Bridgepoint won the auction.

Founded in 1996, LGC was formerly known as the Laboratory of the Government Chemist before it was privatised. It provides forensic research for the UK and German police among other clients, and carries out safety tests on food and drugs. LGV Capital was a majority shareholder before the sale to Bridgepoint.

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