Hill-Rom buying Mortara
Chicago company paying $330 million
Mortara Instrument Inc., a Milwaukee company that makes medical devices for diagnostic cardiology and patient monitoring, has agreed to be bought by Hill-Rom Holdings Inc. for $330 million in cash.
The pending acquisition, which was announced Tuesday, is expected to close in the first quarter of this year.
Mortara Instrument, a privately held company, employs more than 400 people and had sales of about $115 million in 2016. Its primary products are electrocardiography, or ECG, equipment that records the electrical activity of the heart.
Hill-Rom, based in Chicago, employs more than 10,000 people and had revenue of almost $2.7 billion in its fiscal year ended Sept. 30. The company has a diverse product line that includes beds and surfaces designed for different healthcare settings, such as operating rooms and intensive care units; patient monitoring and diagnostic products; and surgical tables and lights.
Mortara Instrument’s revenue has increased fivefold since 2000.
However, Justin Mortara, the company’s chief executive
officer, said that becoming part of a larger company will enable Mortara Instrument to grow at a faster pace.
For example, Mortara Instrument — which competes against companies such as GE Healthcare and Philips N.V. — will have better access to large health systems that tend to concentrate their purchases with a small number of companies.
Hill-Rom’s business unit that sells patient monitors for vital signs also will mesh well with Mortara Instrument’s business that sells cardiac monitors.
Mortara will continue to oversee Mortara Instrument after the sale, and the company’s operations will remain in Milwaukee.
The company completed a 64,000-squarefoot manufacturing and
distribution facility at 8585 W. Bradley Road last year. The building is near the company’s 63,000square-foot headquarters at 7865 N. 86th St. in the Bradley Woods Business Park.
Mortara Instrument’s products are sold to hospitals, cardiologists, primary care physicians and ambulance companies. It also has a profitable niche in clinical research, where its products are used to study the cardiac safety of new drugs.
In a statement, John Greisch, president and chief executive of HillRom, said, “With Mortara, we will expand our diagnostic cardiology franchise in the acute care, clinical research and primary care settings, where we will use our global commercial presence to accelerate growth of the Mortara business.”
Mortara Instrument was founded in 1982 by David Mortara, who had been vice president of engineering at what was then Marquette Electronics, a company bought by GE Healthcare.
Justin Mortara, his son, joined the company in 1998 and became chief executive in 2008.
Mortara Instrument initially made medical devices for Marquette Electronics and other companies. The transition to selling electrocardiography devices under its own name was difficult, particularly in North America, where it competed against larger, well-known companies.
But the company — which now has offices in Australia, Italy, Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom — had some success in foreign markets, where it could adapt its products to the local market.
It also continued to improve its products.
“We laid the groundwork for some really nice things around 2000 and 2001, and from there it lifted nicely,” Justin Mortara said in 2015.