General Atlantic seeks $1.1 bn from sale of German laboratory-service provider Amedes Group

General Atlantic has launched the sale of its German laboratory-service provider Amedes Group, in a deal that could fetch the US private-equity firm around €800 million ($1.1 billion), The Wall Street Journal yesterday reported, citing people familiar with the matter.

Connecticut-based General Atlantic has hired Goldman Sachs to find potential buyers, and Australia's Sonic Health, US-based Quest Diagnostics and LabCorp, as well as private-equity suitors like BC Partners or KKR & Co. Could be prospective suitors, the report said.

General Atlantic had acquired Amedes in 2007 for an undisclosed sum and was looking for an IPO for  the company in late 2011, but backed out due to the uncertainties of then capital at the time.

Founded in 1987 by Dr. Helmut Wagner and Dr. Werner Stibbe, Gottingen, Germany-based Amedes is one of the largest German clinical lab  providing medical diagnostic services for patients, office-based physicians and more than 150 hospitals across the country and Belgium.

It offers laboratory medicine, medical microbiology, infectiology, hygiene inspection, therapeutic drug monitoring, endocrinology, reproductive medicine, gynecology, human genetics, oncological genetics, pathology, cytology, hemostaseology, and tropical medicine services.

With more than 2,600 employees at 35 locations in Germany and Belgium - including over 150 physicians and 90 research assistants, Amedes processes  more than 100,000 samples every day.