Deals

All-Nighter in Stada's Spa Town Ends in Bain, Cinven Win

  • Wiedenfels told reporters ‘no one has had much sleep’
  • The $5.6 billion deal was codenamed Saturn and Antinori
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What started almost a year ago with an activist investor shake-up ended in an overnight bidding whirlwind and, in the early hours of Monday, the sale of one of Europe’s last independent generic drug makers.

At 6:18 a.m. in Bad Vilbel, Germany, Stada Arzneimittel AG announced an agreement to sell itself to Bain Capital and Cinven for 5.3 billion euros ($5.6 billion). The deal marked the end of a dramatic and expensive bidding war that climaxed this weekend between the Bain-Cinven group and rival buyout consortium Advent International Corp. and Permira.