Aug. 6 at 7:24 PM
$LAB ok, so here is the simple arithmetic. LAB acquired SomaLogic 1.5 yrs ago, they announced that SomaLogic was valued at over
$1B, and LAB would own 57% (
$570M). LAB payed for all this in stock.
Now, LAB is selling SomaLogic to ILMN for
$350M upfront, another
$75M depending on some milestones, and 2% royalties on reagents.
takeaway 1: LAB claimed Soma was worth
$1B a year and a half ago, and now sells it for
$350M cash. so they destroyed
$650M in value. or overpaid by that much and kept value the same.
takeaway 2: LAB paid for all this in stock. the acquisition was announced with LAB stock at
$2, it is done nothing but drop since. ILMN is paying the 350 in cash, so the net looks like LAB sold a bunch of stock and got cash.
takeaway 3: mgmt will continue financial engineering like this in the future, paying themselves very richly.
