History says YES.
Big Picture
Stryker’s Spine division is based in Allendale NJ. Stryker Spine’s revenues are about $700M, while K2M’s are about $300M. K2M has about 500 employees. If Stryker were to add all of K2M’s $300M sales to the top line, this would result in a 2% increase to Stryker’s annual revenue. You can see that Stryker cannot take on 500 new employees for a possible 2% bump in sales.
Prediction
Stryker must move and consolidate. The most likely scenario is that K2M office will slowly be moved from Leesburg VA and consolidated into Allendale NJ. Stryker is very proficient in leveraging operational efficiencies after an acquisition. Their integration teams are pros. After closing in Q4, the immediate “no-brainer” layoffs will be in finance, accounting, IT, and HR. Sales is next. Sales is a “local” business so each MSA will be evaluated independently to see which sales team wins out, Stryker or K2M. Sales integration will be the main focus for the first months. The last integrations will be in the product areas of quality, operations, marketing, regulatory, clinical, and R&D. My guess is that these last integrations will take place in Q3 and Q4 2019.
Acquisition History
Below is a list of the previous 14 Stryker acquisitions in Orthopedics and Spine space.
The 4 big ones in the US that are similar to K2M are bolded.
- VEXIM is acquired by Stryker for $218M (~7 X sales)
- Ivy Sports Medicine is acquired by Stryker for undisclosed
- Instratek’s portfolio of staple and hammertoe implants and MIS soft tissue recession instrumentation is acquired by Stryker for undisclosed
- Stanmore Implants acquired by Stryker for $52M cash
- SafeWire acquired by Stryker for undisclosed
- Small Bone Innovations (SBI) acquired by Stryker for $375M in cash
- Pivot Medical acquired by Stryker for undisclosed
- MAKO Surgical is acquired by Stryker for $1.65B (13 X sales)
- Chinese Orthopedic company Trauson Holdings is acquired by Stryker for $764M
- Memometal Technologies acquired by Stryker for $162M
- Orthovita acquired by Stryker for $316M
- Porex Surgical acquired by Stryker for undisclosed
- Synergetics’ Sonopet/Omni lines acquired by Stryker for $3M
