Triton Said to Pursue Stake in Creat’s Blood Plasma Unit Biotest

(Bloomberg) -- Private equity firm Triton has approached China’s Creat Group Corp. about buying a stake in German blood-plasma supplier maker Biotest AG, according to people familiar with the matter.

The European private equity firm has expressed interest in acquiring Biotest shares from Creat, the people said, asking not to be identified because the information is private.

Biotest has a market value of about 1 billion euros ($1.2 billion). Creat owns about 90% of Biotest’s common stock, while its preference shares are held by other investors, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Any deal would see the Chinese group start to unwind a series of overseas acquisitions that began in 2016, which also included a purchase of the U.K.’s Bio Products Laboratory Ltd. Creat was forced to sell Biotest’s U.S. operations following scrutiny from the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S.

Deliberations are at an early stage, and there’s no certainty they will result in a transaction, the people said. A spokeswoman for Triton declined to comment. Calls to Creat’s office in Beijing weren’t answered outside regular business hours.

©2020 Bloomberg L.P.