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Bloomberg
GN Store Nord A/S, the world’s third-largest listed producer of hearing aids, signed a conditional agreement to buy Audigy Group LLC in a deal that could value the U.S. audiology and hearing services company at as much as $151 million.
GN will pay $91 million up front and as much as $60 million more depending on Audigy’s financial performance, the Ballerup, Denmark-based company said in a stock-exchange statement Sunday. The deal is conditional on U.S. competition authority approval as well as other closing conditions that GN didn’t specify.
The hearing aids market is highly concentrated, with the top six companies controlling more than 90 percent of unit sales after a spate of mergers and acquisitions, according to Bloomberg Intelligence. GN has been looking for takeovers for its hearing aid unit after Germany’s cartel office in 2007 blocked a sale of the the division to market leader Sonova Holding AG.
GN also signed a long-term supply agreement with Audigy that will start immediately. The Vancouver, Washington-based company provides services to independent hearing care practices in North America.
Last year, William Demant Holding A/S, the world’s second-largest listed hearing aid maker, agreed to buy Audika Groupe of France. In 2014, Siemens AG agreed to sell its hearing-aids unit for 2.2 billion euros ($2.5 billion) to private-equity firm EQT Partners AB.