Thermo Fisher Scientific (NYSE: TMO), the world leader in serving science, and Dionex Corporation (NASDAQ: DNEX), a leading manufacturer and marketer of chromatography systems, today announced that their Boards of Directors have unanimously approved a transaction under which Thermo Fisher will acquire all of the outstanding shares of Dionex for $118.50 per share in cash, or a total purchase price of approximately $2.1 billion. The transaction is not conditioned on financing and is expected to be completed in the first quarter of 2011.

Under the terms of the agreement, Thermo Fisher will commence a tender offer to acquire all of the outstanding shares of Dionex common stock for $118.50 per share in cash. The consideration represents a 21% premium to Dionex's closing stock price on December 10, 2010, the last trading day prior to today's announcement and a 32% premium to Dionex's average closing stock price over the last 60 trading days. Thermo Fisher expects to realize total operating synergies of $60 million in year three following the transaction's close through a combination of cost savings and revenue enhancements. The transaction is expected to be immediately accretive to Thermo Fisher's adjusted earnings per share by $0.13 to $0.15 in the first 12 months following the close. Adjusted earnings per share and adjusted operating income are non-GAAP measures that exclude certain items detailed later in this press release under the heading "Use of Non-GAAP Financial Measures."

Dionex, based in Sunnyvale, Calif., introduced the first ion chromatography system for water analysis shortly after its founding in 1975 and has consistently grown through innovation and global expansion. Today, the company has more than 1,600 employees in 21 countries spanning six continents, including a significant presence in the Asia-Pacific region. Dionex will be integrated into Thermo Fisher's Analytical Technologies Segment.

"We believe the combination of Thermo Fisher and Dionex is extremely compelling from a technology, market and financial perspective," said Marc N. Casper, president and chief executive officer of Thermo Fisher. "Dionex's strength in chromatography instruments, software and consumables complements our leading positions in mass spectrometry and laboratory information management systems. The transaction, which we expect to be immediately accretive, is consistent with our strategy of accelerating growth by increasing our depth of capabilities to serve attractive end markets. Specifically, it complements our strong presence in China, where we've established the headquarters for our global environmental instruments business and continue to build our commercial infrastructure to meet the needs of customers in growing water quality, consumer safety and life sciences markets."

"We are pleased to be joining Thermo Fisher and are excited about the opportunities we will have as part of the world leader in serving science," said Frank Witney, president and chief executive officer of Dionex. "Thermo Fisher's commitment to innovation will fuel our ongoing technology development, and their global manufacturing and commercial presence will significantly strengthen our ability to deliver quality products and services to our customers around the world. This transaction offers immediate and significant value for our shareholders, as well as the opportunity for our customers and employees to benefit from combining two highly complementary organizations. We look forward to working closely with the Thermo Fisher team to ensure a smooth transition and complete the transaction as expeditiously as possible."

Mr. Casper continued, "We are delighted to welcome Dionex's talented and dedicated employees to our team. Together, we will offer our customers new solutions based on a powerful combination of leading instruments, software, consumables and services."

Benefits of the Transaction

• Creates a Leading Chromatography Offering: The transaction brings two complementary chromatography portfolios together to create the most extensive chromatography instruments, software and consumables offering in the industry. Specifically, it combines Dionex's ion and liquid chromatography systems and consumables with Thermo Fisher's gas chromatography systems and consumables.
• Improves Performance and Productivity: Customers will benefit from the combination of Thermo Fisher's leadership in mass spectrometry with Dionex's comprehensive chromatography offering. By integrating these leading technologies and related software, Thermo Fisher will be able to deliver exceptional performance and productivity for customers through improved sample analysis and data management.
• Strengthens Software Growth Platform: Dionex's gold standard chromatography data system coupled with Thermo Fisher's leading enterprise laboratory information management systems creates the most comprehensive desktop and enterprise software capabilities in the industry. This combination will significantly improve performance, productivity and compliance for customers to maximize their return on investment.
• Expands Presence in Applied Markets: Thermo Fisher will benefit from Dionex's significant customer base and relationships in attractive applied markets, including environmental analysis, food safety and other industrial sectors. Through this combination, Thermo Fisher will be able to deliver unmatched analytical solutions for a growing range of testing needs, particularly water analysis, where growth is driven by new regulatory requirements and increased testing in developing countries such as China.
• Increases Footprint in Asia-Pacific: Dionex currently generates more than 35% of its revenues in Asia-Pacific and other emerging high-growth geographies. The company has a history of growth in the region by establishing a strong reputation through its well-regarded direct sales and service presence there. This transaction is consistent with Thermo Fisher's strategy of investing to increase its footprint in Asian markets, such as China and India, as well as other strategic growth markets, like Brazil.
• Offers Significant Synergies: The transaction is expected to generate a total of approximately $60 million of cost and revenue synergies in year three after the transaction's close. This includes approximately $40 million from cost-related synergies and $20 million of adjusted operating income benefit from revenue-related synergies.

Mr. Casper concluded, "The acquisition of Dionex is another example of the great progress we're making in executing on our strategy to accelerate growth. We have invested in technology innovation, Asia expansion and complementary acquisitions—all to strengthen our growth opportunities in attractive end markets. We are focused on these strategic investments because they create value for all our key stakeholders—customers, employees and shareholders."

The ARC is supposed to allocate the government’s money wisely to support research by Australia’s academics, but because it uses a peer review approach to decide which proposals are worth funding, it is inherently biased against innovative research. If a new researcher in a field formed the opinion that a currently insoluble problem (say, the results of  ”Black Body” radiation experiments) might just require a fundamental shift in thinking (such assuming that there was a fundamental minimum value for energy, rather than it being a continuous variable), it is highly unlikely that established researchers would think his idea worthy of funding. Yet that idea might be right and the established way of thinking wrong.

We’re rather lucky that Max Planck wasn’t relying on the ARC for funding, but instead got his support from a commercial source (quoting Wikipedia, Planck “had been commissioned by electric companies to create maximum light from lightbulbs with minimum energy”); so ultimately the concept of quantum mechanics was born.

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