Company to Watch: APPLIED MEDICAL RESOURCES CORP.
We picked this Rancho Santa Margarita-based company last year because it entered 2012 as the reluctant subject of what could have been Orange County’s first major healthcare initial public offering since late 2007.
As this year comes to a close, Applied’s IPO is still pending.
The maker of medical devices used in surgeries filed to raise $95 million in a public offering of 6.4 million shares of its class A common stock in mid-November 2011.
Applied’s filing was driven at the behest of Institutional Venture Partners, a Menlo Park-based late-stage venture capital firm that owns about 20% of the company. IVP had invested in a pair of Applied predecessor companies in 1988.
Applied revamped the planned offering in September: It now is seeking to sell 729,798 class B shares of its common stock to raise $25 million.
The company also took shots at various parties interested in the IPO, including former company director Peter Thomas and San Francisco-based underwriter WR Hambrecht & Co.
—Vita Reed
Person to Watch: J. ROBERT HURLEY
Our pick of J. Robert Hurley came as Brea-based Beckman Coulter Inc. was ending its long run as a publicly traded company.
As things turned out, Hurley announced his retirement. The move followed his guiding Beckman, which makes medical testing equipment and supplies, during its first year under the ownership of Washington, D.C.-based Danaher Corp.
He had been its interim chief executive in 2010 after the departure of Scott Garrett. Hurley’s retirement followed the March announcement that Beckman’s $800 million life sciences division would relocate from Brea to Indianapolis.
Other executive changes also followed. Thomas Joyce, a Danaher executive vice president, was named president of Beckman Coulter Diagnostics. Scott Atkin, a 16-year Beckman veteran, moved to Indianapolis as the division president of Beckman Coulter Life Sciences.
Joyce said during a June meeting with analysts in Toronto that Danaher has “taken the Beckman Coulter business and really formed two separate Danaher operating companies.” Danaher historically has taken a hands-off approach with its business units.
—Vita Reed
5 Big Health Stories
• St. Joseph Health and Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian team up to create integrated regional health delivery network.
• Edwards Lifesciences Corp.’s Edwards Sapien less-invasive heart valve gains market traction as it goes into full release.
• James Mazzo announces retirement from Abbott Medical Optics and later gets charged with insider trading by the Securities and Exchange Commission.
• San Clemente-based Cameron Health Inc., which makes heart defibrillators, gets bought by Boston Scientific Corp. in a deal that could be worth more than $1 billion if certain incentives are met.
• Sun Healthcare Group Inc. of Irvine is acquired for $275 million by fellow nursing home operator Genesis HealthCare LLC.
