Woodson Tenent Laboratories

EUROFINS SCIENTIFIC has completed more stages of its development plan during the first half of 2000. On 14 June 2000, the Group made the acquisition of SIMEC, Kaiser and Burki laboratories, all located in the German speaking part of Switzerland. Subsequently, on 25 July 2000, Eurofins Scientific finalised the purchase agreement of 18 April 2000 and acquired 100% of the shares of Woodson-Tenent Laboratories (WTL), which has its headquarters in Memphis, Tennessee, USA. Based in the South and the Middle West of the United States, the WTL group of laboratories specialises in various aspects of analytical chemistry and microbiology for the assay of foods and animal feeds. WTL group operates six laboratories located in Tennessee, Arkansas, Georgia, Iowa, North Carolina and Ohio. The acquisition of WTL provides Eurofins Scientific with immediate access to a wide range of complementary analytical processes, to important new key accounts, and a well-recognised scientific team. Eurofins Scientific intends to rapidly register and enforce the synergies between both groups so that WTL clients will enjoy the benefit of the analytical services and proprietary technologies developed by Eurofins Scientific in the fields of molecular biology (detection and quantization of GMOs) and authenticity analysis. As a privileged partner of the main cereal producers, WTL gives Eurofins Scientific an immediate access to the huge North American cereal and oilseed market. In the context of the growing demand for transparency concerning the presence of GMOs, Eurofins Scientific now occupies a privileged position to apply advanced technology and set up on behalf of its clients and their suppliers an optimal integrated analytical monitoring programme for soya and corn lots from the world's most important producer. With this acquisition of WTL, the American division of Eurofins Scientific Group becomes one of the market leaders with annual sales up to $20 million, more than 300 staff and 10 laboratories throughout the USA from the East Coast to the West Coast. The laboratories in the Middle West states are especially strategically placed for the heavy concentration of food industry multinationals in this area. In Europe, the merger of SIMEC, Kaiser and Burki laboratories has ensured that Eurofins Scientific also becomes one of the major groups of independent laboratories active in the Swiss market. Thanks to the Group's comprehensive portfolio of technologies, these new partners should significantly strengthen their competitiveness. As well as ensuring that Eurofins Scientific attains the objective of expanding its network in one new country each year and becoming a market leader in the countries where it is present, the completion of these 4 deals will also bring about € 15 million of additional annual sales to the Group. These 4 acquisitions and the negotiations currently in progress reinforce Eurofins Scientific in its ambition rapidly to become a leading player in its business sector world wide. To this purpose, the Group has intensified its investments since the beginning of 2000 and will announce a new « business plan » including an enhancement of its development potential in September 2000.