Carlyle in exclusive talks to take majority stake in two Medtronic businesses

Medtronic's patient monitoring and respiratory interventions businesses would be part of a new company majority-owned by private equity firm Carlyle Group under a plan being negotiated, according to people familiar with the matter.

Medtronic undertook a 12-month review of the $7 billion-plus businesses, which included whether to spin them off into a stand-alone public company.

Medtronic is seeking to streamline its portfolio and focus on its higher-growth assets, such as its heart and diabetes devices, by divesting the two units that generated about $2.2 billion in revenue in the 2022 fiscal year, according to the company, which is based in Ireland but run from Fridley.

The two businesses would move to the new company majority-owned by Carlyle. Medtronic would retain a 35% stake, the sources said.

"As matter of policy, we have no comment on rumor or speculation," said Amy Jo Meyer, a spokeswoman for Medtronic.

The sources cautioned that no deal is certain and requested anonymity because the matter is confidential. Carlyle also declined to comment.

Medtronic, which has a market value of $105 billion, makes medical devices that treat more than 70 health conditions across its cardiovascular, diabetes, medical surgical and neuroscience divisions.

When Medtronic announced the planned spinoff in October 2022, the company said that the two business groups employed approximately 8,000 people.

"The businesses aren't really part of a broader therapeutic ecosystem that we're focused on. They don't have the same synergies as our other businesses do," said Geoff Martha, CEO of Medtronic, at the time.

Earlier this year, Medtronic competitor Baxter International Inc. also embarked on a pruning of its assets to focus on growth. It said in January it would spin off its renal care and acute therapies units and in May it agreed to sell its biopharma solutions business to a private equity consortium comprising Warburg Pincus and Advent International for $4.25 billion, including debt.

Carlyle, one of the world's biggest private equity firms with $385 billion in assets under management, is a prolific investor in the health care sector.

Its previous deals include primary care clinic operator One Medical, which it took public and then sold to Amazon.com Inc., for $3.9 billion last year, and Ortho Clinical Diagnostics, a medical screening business it acquired from Johnson & Johnson in 2014 for $4 billion before selling it to COVID-19 test maker Quidel Corp. in a $6 billion cash-and-stock deal that was completed last year.