Regulatory News:
Eurofins (Paris:ERF):
Expanding on its original press release of 25 June 2024 in
response to the report by Muddy Waters, LLC (MW) on Eurofins
published on 24 June 2024, Eurofins is providing detailed
information to refute the most blatant accusations and misleading
information intentionally spread by the short seller MW, further
evidencing and supporting Eurofins’ view that the entirety of the
allegations and insinuations contained in the MW report are either
inaccurate, irrelevant, biased and/or misleading. This second
rebuttal, underpinned by publicly available documents, of MW’s
unfounded and misleading allegations focusses on the matters of
greatest importance to shareholders, bondholders, employees and
other stakeholders as per Eurofins management’s discussions with
them since 25 June 2024 and covers especially allegations made
which related to the last 10 years. Eurofins continues to access
archives regarding older facts cited with errors by MW and will
consider formulating additional documented rebuttals at a later
stage.
In addition, the way that MW has shared self-contained and
purely subjective opinions regarding Eurofins as part of this
public campaign does not allow for an appropriate shareholder
dialogue and the delivery of clear and correct information to the
market. MW has never initiated a dialogue with Eurofins to discuss
their assessments, which could have prevented the spread of
incorrect and misleading information.
Allegations made by MW are listed below, referencing the pages
in its report where the allegation is made. Eurofins’ responses are
supported by references and links to publicly available information
as well as documents available on the Investors section of the
Eurofins website under the tab “Eurofins response to MW” accessible
here and organised in appendices according to the numbering
below.
1. MW
allegations: “Eurofins’ Possibly Too-Good-to-be-True
Metrics (referring to revenues per employee)” (p. 21) and
“Eurofins’ Questionable CapEx Give Rise to Concerns about
Malfeasance, Possibly Including Covering a Cash Hole” (p. 23).
Eurofins response: This false
statement demonstrates MW’s complete lack of understanding of
Eurofins and its activities. The peer group of 3 TIC companies
chosen by MW is neither representative of the analytical services
provided by our network of laboratories nor of Eurofins’ much more
limited presence in Asia, especially China.
- Eurofins’ activities in terms of revenues per employee
(€115k/employee) are clearly in the middle of the range among these
more scientifically advanced testing services peers like Charles
River (€175k/employee), Labcorp (€168k/employee) and Synlab
(€98k/employee). A 45% mix of the average of Charles River’s and
Labcorp’s primarily US-based revenues and employees
(€171k/employee) and 55% of Synlab’s (€98k/employee) Europe-based
revenues and employees equates to a proxy of ca. €130k/ revenues
per employee vs 115k€ for Eurofins.
- In terms of capex/revenues, Eurofins (8.3%) is very comparable
to Charles River (7.7%).
Supporting documents are available under
Appendix 1 on the webpage mentioned at the top of this press
release.
2. MW
allegation: “Eurofins’ Cash Accounting Seems Designed to
Maximize Confusion and Inaccuracy – if Not Outright Overstatement”
(p. 10). Eurofins response:
This is false, misleading and defamatory. Cash is audited each year
by Deloitte and the auditors of all Eurofins local operating
companies by direct confirmations from banks. There is thus no
doubt about Eurofins’ cash position at 31 December 2023. However
unnecessary that might be, Eurofins is considering mandating a
reputed international accounting firm to perform an additional
independent audit of Eurofins cash pooling arrangements and cash
situation in its consolidated financial statement as of 31 December
2023.
3. MW
allegation: “Eurofins Buys Real Estate from a
Questionable Seller Who Was Possibly a Straw Intermediary” (p. 27).
Eurofins response: MW
demonstrates its lack of a serious approach by making many
unsubstantiated statements. JMW Solicitors LLP, who acted for
Eurofins and its SPV, Southern Real Estate Investment UK Ltd, on
its acquisition of Permitted Developments Investment Limited (PDI)
1 Dukes Green Avenue Feltham, has provided Eurofins a letter that
states the following:
- There is no link between the former shareholders of PDI and
Eurofins. The transaction was conducted on an arm’s length basis,
fully negotiated between independently advised parties. The selling
shareholders were not acting as straw men and are serial investors
in similar property developments for the purpose of residential
property.
- Contrary to the incorrect statement in the MW report, the
registered and business address of PDI only became I54 Business
Park, Wolverhampton after Eurofins had acquired PDI on 12 August
2019 as part of normal good corporate practice.
- The purchase price stated in the MW report of £15m is factually
incorrect. Eurofins acquired PDI for a total consideration of
£13.9m.
Supporting documents are available under
Appendix 3 on the webpage mentioned at the top of this press
release.
4. MW
allegation: “In 2016, Dr. Martin effectively gifted
Holstebro to Mr. Linde for DKK 1.” (p. 19). Eurofins response: Both Dr Martin and Mr Linde
lost money investing in a building to support Eurofins Denmark’s
development in Holstebro. The Holstebro building in Denmark leased
to Eurofins Denmark starting July 2006 was owned by Holstebro
Invest, a subsidiary of Analytical Bioventures SCA (ABSCA), which
is controlled by Dr Gilles Martin. As can be confirmed from public
filings of its accounts, Holstebro Invest never paid a dividend or
transferred any funds to Analytical Bioventures SCA (ABSCA) or any
entity related to Dr Martin. In 2014, Eurofins Denmark decided to
vacate the site and terminated the lease effective September 2016.
Absent any third-party buyer or tenant, Linde Holding, owned by
Svend Aage Linde, who resides in Denmark and was in a better
position to find a use for the building, offered to take over
Holstebro Invest for a purchase price of DKK 1 and assumed its debt
and other obligations of ca. DKK 18.5m in October 2016, as shown on
p. 9 of the Holstebro Invest statutory audit report for 2016.
Unfortunately, Holstebro Invest was unable to find a tenant and
ultimately in 2022 disposed of the building for a price of DKK 7m
as shown on p. 1 of the Deed of sale – extract of land registry
2022. Ultimately, Linde Holding realised a net loss of ca. DKK 12m
on its investment, equivalent to a loss of over €1.5m. Not only did
Dr Martin, through ABSCA, not make any profit from this rental to
Eurofins or generate any return from its invested capital in
Holstebro Invest but ABSCA ended up losing 100% of its invested
capital in Holstebro Invest (€670k). Likewise, Mr Linde did not
benefit from this transaction, but to the contrary lost over
€1.5m.
Supporting documents mentioned above are
available under Appendix 4 on the webpage mentioned at the top of
this press release.
5. MW
allegation: “For Two Decades, Dr Martin Has Siphoned
Money from Eurofins to Build His Commercial Real Estate Portfolio”
(p. 4). Eurofins response: This
is a baseless, defamatory and misleading statement that completely
overlooks the corporate governance processes and history of the
Company.
- Eurofins has already confirmed in multiple annual reports and
publications that related party lease transactions are conducted at
arm’s length as can be assessed with comparable transactions and
assessments by independent valuation specialists. Furthermore,
since June 2017, a Sustainability and Corporate Governance
Committee of the Eurofins Board has been set up to independently
assess these related party transactions. It is composed only of
independent directors.
- Statement by Patrizia Luchetta, Chair of the Sustainability and
Corporate Governance Committee of the Eurofins Board of Directors:
“I confirm that the lease terms for all properties with ongoing
leases with related parties in 2023 or continuing in 2024 have been
assessed by the Sustainability and Corporate Governance Committee,
as required by Company’s Corporate Governance Charter (section
1.1.1 of the Corporate Governance section of Eurofins 2023 Annual
Report), as market conform and at arm’s length terms based on both
independent third-party valuations and published benchmarks of
rental cost per sqm for third-party leases.”
- At the end of 2023, Eurofins occupied a total of about 1.73m
sqm of net floor area, thereof ca. 240k (13.9% of total) being
rented from related parties and ca. 944k sqm (54.4% of total) being
rented from third-party landlords (p. 217 of the Eurofins 2023
Annual Report). The annualised rent per sqm for sites leased from
related parties stood at €146 (for total rent payments in 2023 of
ca. €35m), in line with those leased from third parties which
stands at €144 (p. 217 of the Eurofins 2023 Annual Report). When
comparing laboratory sites, only (90% of the surfaces leased from
related parties) in countries where lease agreements are made with
both third-party landlords and related parties, the annualised rent
per sqm for sites leased from third parties stands at €165, whereas
those leased from related parties stands at €149 (p. 217 of the
Eurofins 2023 Annual Report).
- In the last ten years, there was no M&A transaction that
resulted in ABSCA/Dr Martin and their related parties buying the
land or building from the acquisition target or sellers and leasing
it back to Eurofins. Furthermore, it should be noted that Eurofins
has completed more than 360 acquisitions in the past ten years
(2014-2023) without any new related-party lease agreement in
connection with such acquisitions.
- Since 2018, related-party real estate transactions only concern
either the renewal of ongoing leases or situations where a Eurofins
tenant desires to expand its presence on an existing ABSCA-owned
campus with only one minor exception for Eurofins offices in
Luxembourg where ABSCA accommodated the needs of Eurofins to reduce
its area over time (from 2,595 sqm in 2013 to 869 sqm in
2024).
- Since 2019, Eurofins has expanded the number of strategic sites
it owns, directly acquired from third parties, increasing the
surface area of its owned sites from ca. 240k sqm at the end of
2018 (p. 68 of the Eurofins 2018 Annual Report) to ca. 550k sqm at
the end of 2023 (+129%) (p. 217 of the Eurofins 2023 Annual
Report).
- Allegations by MW regarding older transactions are disputed too
and complementary responses based on additional evidence currently
sought in Eurofins archives may be provided down the line. To cite
one example on which MW puts particular focus on with a whole 2
pages (pp. 33-34) of Appendix B in its report dedicated to this:
AvTech. MW again gets its facts wrong which makes the rest of its
discussion and conclusions on that property also wrong. One
building was purchased upon Eurofins' acquisition in 2005 of AvTech
at a price assessed to be at arm’s length at the time. The
expansion of the space rentable to AvTech was initiated immediately
after, and the works were completed in 2006 and paid for by ABSCA.
The size of the rentable space was doubled by these building works
and ABSCA investments. The mortgage cited by MW financed not only
the acquisition of the initial building but also the buildout
performed in 2006. The mortgage value is thus not comparable to the
price paid for the initial building and as a result the calculation
of a loan to value of 165% by MW is massively wrong too. ABSCA
financed the development of this building so Eurofins could use its
resources to expand organically and through acquisitions at a time
its access to capital and credit was much more limited (as a
reminder, this was 19 years ago and Eurofins’ revenues were only
€176m in 2004, €233m in 2005 and €368m in 2006).
6. MW
allegation: “Potential Slip-Up: 2022 Acquisition of
BioSanté in Martinique for a Reported ~€81m” (p. 25).
Eurofins response: MW does not
seem to understand Eurofins nor its markets as a comparison with a
tourism company does not reflect the reality of Eurofins’ business.
BioSanté is a network of clinical blood testing laboratories
covering close to half of the tests performed by independent
laboratories in the French overseas department of Martinique. Under
Appendix 6 on the webpage mentioned at the top of this press
release, Eurofins is providing a summary of transactions by
parties, excluding Eurofins, of companies active in clinical
diagnostics mainly in France, Belgium and Italy, for the period
from 2020 to 2022, referencing publicly available documents and
press articles. These transactions have enterprise value to
revenues ratios of 2.8x to 6.1x. The list includes the acquisition
of Biolab Martinique by Cerba in November 2022 at an enterprise
value to revenues ratio of 3.1x. This transaction occurred one
month after Eurofins completed its acquisition of BioSanté in
October 2022 at an enterprise value to revenues ratio of 3.6x. It
should also be noted that reimbursements by the French state CNAM
to clinical laboratories in Martinique (B=0.29) are 16% higher than
the reimbursements for the same test in Metropolitan France
(B=0.25) as decreed in the national convention organising relations
between directors of private medical analysis laboratories and
health insurance as described on pp. 2-3 under Appendix 6 on the
webpage mentioned at the top of this press release. Since its
acquisition by Eurofins, BioSanté has performed well and it is
Eurofins management’s opinion that it will deliver expected
returns. The EBITDA multiple quoted by MW was calculated using a
pre-acquisition EBITDA burdened by sellers’ expenses and
remunerations that are no longer relevant and thus is not
comparable to BioSanté‘s EBITDA under the management of
Eurofins.
7. MW
allegation: “One of the oddities is that as Eurofins
becomes larger, it’s increasingly interested in smaller
acquisitions.” (p. 23). Eurofins
response: This wrong statement shows once again the
aggressivity of MW and its desire to disrupt the market with
misleading short judgments. There are many economically and
strategically rational reasons why the average revenue of companies
acquired by Eurofins varies over time and was lower in 2023:
- Between 2015 and 2018, to build out a platform that could best
harness economies of scale, Eurofins pursued an acquisition
strategy of acquiring sizable companies such as Bio-Access,
Megalab, Covance Food Solutions, TestAmerica and EAG
Laboratories.
- Eurofins only acquires companies if they meet its strenuous
economic and strategic criteria. The average size of companies
acquired varies depending on which opportunities become available
in a given year that meet Eurofins criteria including management
and governance, reputation, quality, price and, in particular,
return on capital employed.
- Despite the ongoing consolidation process, Eurofins still
operates in many regions and activity segments utilising a large
number of smaller local laboratories carrying out time critical
assays or assays meeting specific local requirements.
- Given the more uncertain economic climate and mismatch in price
expectations of many sellers of larger companies in a higher
interest rate environment, Eurofins has been focussed on reasonably
valued bolt-on deals, with supporting data available under Appendix
7 on the webpage mentioned at the top of this press release. Since
smaller deals tend to have more favourable valuations, they have
recently been more attractive to Eurofins from a return on capital
employed perspective compared to larger acquisitions. Moreover,
Eurofins now has local teams in many more countries that are
capable of integrating smaller acquisitions.
- The average size of acquisitions may increase again in the
future depending on companies that become available at acceptable
multiples and meet Eurofins’ returns objectives.
8. MW
allegation: “Eurofins’ Long History of Confusing Cash
Disclosures and Complexity” (p. 14) referencing “Deloitte’s 2023
reclassification of balance sheet accounts of ~€682 million” (p.
14) Eurofins response: This
statement is baseless and misleading. The technical restatement
done in the FY22 statutory accounts of Eurofins International
Holdings Lux Sàrl is not linked to cash pools but is linked to
intercompany accounts receivable and accounts payable positions
with other Group companies which were not netted initially, and
which were netted in the amended version. As it related to
intercompany positions that are fully eliminated in consolidation,
this restatement had no impact on Group IFRS consolidated financial
statements. The revised audit report for this subsidiary of
Eurofins and duly signed by Deloitte is available under Appendix 8
on the webpage mentioned at the top of this press release.
9. MW
allegation: “Eurofins Has Had a Loose Internal Financial
Reporting System Primarily Based on Spreadsheets” (p. 17)
Eurofins response: This is a
false statement. Eurofins utilises well recognised standard finance
applications such as:
- Microsoft Dynamics and Microsoft Great Plains for accounting
platforms in Europe and North America with a coverage of ca. 90% of
its activities
- IBM Cognos Controller and TM1 for consolidation, budgeting and
monthly financial reporting, with a coverage of ca. 100% of its
activities
- Coupa P2P solution for all third-party purchases, with a
coverage of over 90% of purchasing spend
Thanks to these systems, every single
business leader has access to his/her budget and monthly and
quarterly financials via an automated internal portal. They can
also request support from the business controllers and/or National
Service Centres covering their scope. Leaders and controllers can
of course use spreadsheets to analyse data extracted from
accounting systems, but they cannot change accounting data logged
in finance applications.
Furthermore, as disclosed in its 2023 Annual
Report on p. 216, to ensure a high degree of internal control in a
decentral organisation, Eurofins has been commissioning, for more
than two decades, local statutory and independent audits for all
its operating subsidiaries worldwide, even where not required by
law. Results and findings from these local statutory and
independent audits are monitored centrally and reported to the
Audit and Risk Committee of the Eurofins Board of Directors so that
Eurofins can continuously strengthen its internal controls.
10. MW
allegation: “There could be cause for concern about
whether Eurofins’ cash was properly segregated from Dr Martin’s
entities” (p.19) Eurofins
response: This false and misleading statement is based
on unfounded accusations. There is a full segregation of cash
between Eurofins companies and related-party companies. There are
no cash pooling agreements or financing arrangements between them.
Eurofins goes beyond its legal obligations, in order to ensure
reliability and strong control of financial statements, by
commissioning local statutory and independent audits on all its
subsidiaries, as stated on p. 216 of Eurofins 2023 Annual Report.
As part of these audits, there is a systematic audit of cash in all
Eurofins companies by Tier 1 or Tier 2 auditing firms.
11. MW
allegation: “Eurofins’ Governance is Optimized for
Malfeasance: Seemingly Co-Opted Executives and a Weak Board” (p.19)
Eurofins response: This
statement is baseless, misleading and defamatory. Only 3 out of 8
Board members are members of the Martin family. The remaining 5
members are independent and form a majority (63%). None of the
members of the Martin family sit in Board committees. Independent
non-executive directors are all highly qualified individuals,
including Pascal Rakovsky (former audit partner and audit practice
leader at PwC Luxembourg), Evie Roos (former CHRO at SES), Ivo Rauh
(former member of the executive Board at DEKRA, one of the largest
TIC companies in the world), Patrizia Luchetta (former Head of Life
Sciences and New Technologies Directorate at the Luxembourg
Ministry of Economy and Trade) and Dr Erica Monfardini (former
Director of Global Pharma and Strategic Partnerships at B Medical
Systems and former Director of Administration and Finance of the
University of Luxembourg).
12. MW
allegation: “Eurofins’ Long History of Confusing Cash
Disclosures and Complexity” (p. 14) referencing “a string of
questionable cash accounting disclosures that we believe are likely
misstatements in the Company’s cash balances” (p. 14)
Eurofins response: This
statement is also totally unfounded and misleading. The change in
the definition of cash and cash equivalents was made to better
reflect the requirement of IFRS 9 regarding net investment hedge.
This applies to cash pools held in foreign currencies in
Luxembourg, where FX variations would be booked in the consolidated
statement of comprehensive income like other FX translations gains
and losses.
13. MW
allegation: “Eurofins’ Governance is Optimized for
Malfeasance: Seemingly Co-opted Executives and a Weak Board” (p.
19) referencing Mr Svend Aage Linde (p. 19) and Mr Florian Heupel
(pp. 19-20) Eurofins response:
No Eurofins executive receives informal compensation. It has been
sufficiently demonstrated earlier in this press release with
accessible public filings that Mr Linde and Dr Martin (via ABSCA)
did not benefit from the Holstebro building related-party
transaction but rather that both were acting as supporters of
Eurofins' expansion in Denmark and privately lost significant
amounts of money in doing so. There was never certainty that any
investments by ABSCA in buildings to be rented to Eurofins, at
times when Eurofins’ balance sheet would not allow the additional
debt required for Eurofins to own these buildings, would be
guaranteed to yield a profit. Those were not riskless investments
as alleged by MW. The very transaction cited by MW clearly
demonstrates the risks inherent in such investments for Dr Martin
and subsequently for Mr Linde. MW’s statement that Mr Linde
received informal remuneration from Dr Martin could not be further
from the truth.
MW alleges that Dr Heupel’s independence
would be affected by a role held as an independent board member of
a Luxembourg fund controlled by Patrizia Asset Management
(Patrizia). With €57bn in assets under management, Patrizia is
totally unrelated to Eurofins or its management. After thorough
investigations in Eurofins purchasing and real estate databases,
Eurofins found no evidence supporting the accuracy of the quote
from anonymous source G (p. 20 of MW report, footnote 47) that
“Patrizia reportedly has both served as a landlord to Eurofins and
sold properties to Eurofins” (p. 20 of MW report). In particular,
Eurofins found no single trace of Patrizia being either a landlord
or having sold real estate to Eurofins. For good order, further
investigations will be carried out. In any case, decisions
regarding real estate are made by leaders of Eurofins operating
companies around the world under the oversight of Eurofins’ real
estate function. Dr Heupel does not belong to this function nor can
he influence decision-making regarding real estate by Eurofins
companies. Also, any remuneration he may have received from
Patrizia for his non-executive directorship in one of Patrizia’s
over 100 Luxembourg funds is not related to Eurofins or Dr Martin.
MW allegations are here again unfounded.
Comments from the CEO, Dr Gilles Martin:
“With this additional rebuttal, we have provided clear
explanations, direct evidence accessible from public reference
sources and supportive data that comprehensively refute Muddy
Waters’ most significant allegations and suspicions targeting
Eurofins and its management that relate to activity in the last 10
years. It is astounding how such a self-serving report containing
so many factual errors, misleading and erroneous allegations
demonstrating complete ignorance of Eurofins, its markets, and how
multinationals and top global auditors operate can be issued by an
organisation like MW that alleges to serve society by exposing the
truth. It raises the question: is it possible to make so many
errors and false hypotheses unintentionally? Going forward, we will
work to identify further documentation regarding their other
baseless and erroneous claims, many referring to facts dating back
15 to 20 years. We will prioritise areas where more information is
requested by our significant long-term shareholders and, where
deemed required, conduct forensic investigations involving outside
specialists to further prove the unfounded and misleading nature of
MW’s claims. We are confident that the information contained in
both this press release and the documents it cites, and the results
of these thorough investigations, will once again unambiguously
demonstrate to all the integrity and impartiality with which
Eurofins conducts and manages its business. Our employees,
bondholders, shareholders and other stakeholders should rest
assured that we will continue vigorously defending ourselves
against this and any future baseless attacks.”
In addition to rebuttals made above in items 1-13, below are
further considerations that may be obvious for experienced
institutional investors but that may not be familiar to individual
investors or other stakeholders.
On MW’s self-serving practices:
MW refer to their report as Muddy Waters Research but do not
even claim to undertake proper financial research. In its
disclaimer which they call “Terms of Use” they describe their work
as only “opinion journalism”.
By merely expressing an “opinion”, the standard of proof and
factual evidence applied to MW publications is very low. In
general, any opinions can be wrong with little consequence. To the
contrary, financial reports and press releases by companies and the
work of auditors are highly regulated and subject to a very high
degree of burden of reliability and proof with significant
penalties in case of misstatements or errors. These two types of
communication cannot be considered to have comparable
credibility.
The report by MW is presented as “opinion journalism” and
presents almost all assertions and allegations with qualifiers
including “supposedly, possibly, it seems to us, seems, potential,
presumably, appears to, might be, apparently, our view is, it is
plausible that, our question is that, it strikes us that it would
be easier to, …” and subjective words like “oddities”. Nonetheless,
in order to gain credibility, some assertions are presented as
facts. Eurofins has amply demonstrated above with reference to
publicly available documents, that many of these “facts” are
actually wrong (e.g., the incorrect date of registration of PDI at
the same address as Eurofins Food Testing UK Ltd in Wolverhampton)
or simply not relevant to Eurofins (e.g., the revenues and
personnel costs per employee of 3 TIC companies incomparable to
Eurofins). MW asserts or implies the existence of potential fraud
(e.g., misstating revenues, personal costs, or cash) but presents
no evidence to prove it. It appears that MW expresses opinions with
a view to manipulate and serve its purely financial interests.
A significant part of the MW report claims to report information
derived from interviews with past employees of Eurofins companies.
All quotes are anonymous, preventing any analysis of the
credibility of the sources to be undertaken or confirmed. Quotes
are truncated to such an extent that they lack context and are
contradictory in parts. Eurofins has been informed by past
employees who participated in similar calls that the questions are
often formulated in order to receive the responses desired by the
interviewer. One example of such is exposed in a public post by Mr
Xavier Dennery who long ago was a member of Eurofins Group
Operating Council until March 2011 (see Supplemental Appendix on
the webpage mentioned at the top of this press release). It could
well be that several of these purportedly journalistic interviews
conducted by MW could be interpreted as an attempt to fabricate
quotable text to support a foregone conclusion. Interestingly MW
appears to cite 10 sources in its footnotes (A,B,C,D,G,H,J,K,L,Q)
but a number of sources (E,F,I,M,N,O,P) in the sequence appear to
be missing. MW does not disclose how many interviews were actually
performed in total and how many interviewees in fact confirmed that
Eurofins’ practices are ethical, conform to legislation and best
practice and whose statements would contradict those parts of
interviews which are quoted.
The publication by MW was also done soon after market opening
but apparently during trading hours on 24 June 2024 and immediately
generated very high trading volumes. This raises additional
questions.
Next steps for Eurofins:
Eurofins will systematically address any area of potential
concern that its main investors will raise and make results of its
investigations public. As always, Eurofins will listen to any well
justified suggestion regarding Eurofins’ structure, governance and
the future state of real estate rented from related parties shared
by the majority of its large institutional investors and take these
into account in future decisions. Eurofins intends to update the
market as progress is made on all these actions.
It must also be noted that the MW report was published on the
first day of Eurofins’ blackout period preceding the 24 July 2024
publication of Eurofins’ H1 2024 results, showing MW’s eagerness to
disrupt the markets. This was definitely not constructive for
proper market function, as it prevented Eurofins and its management
from altering or issuing new share buyback instructions. After the
publication of H1 2024 results, Eurofins intends to consider the
trading conditions of Eurofins shares and potentially increase
significantly ongoing share buyback programmes. Eurofins is also
informed that ABSCA considers setting up such a delegated programme
too.
Eurofins will also closely liaise with its auditors whose work
was also unjustly questioned and with its legal advisors and the
relevant regulators to address any unfounded allegations and
introduce any actions which may have to be taken to protect
investors and prevent further market manipulation.
About Eurofins – the global leader in bio-analysis
Eurofins is Testing for Life. The Eurofins Scientific S.E.
network of independent companies believes that it is a global
leader in food, environment, pharmaceutical and cosmetic product
testing and in discovery pharmacology, forensics, advanced material
sciences and agroscience contract research services. It is also one
of the market leaders in certain testing and laboratory services
for genomics, and in the support of clinical studies, as well as in
biopharma contract development and manufacturing. It also has a
rapidly developing presence in highly specialised and molecular
clinical diagnostic testing and in-vitro diagnostic products.
With ca. 62,000 staff across a decentralised and entrepreneurial
network of more than 900 laboratories in over 1,000 companies in 62
countries, Eurofins offers a portfolio of over 200,000 analytical
methods to evaluate the safety, identity, composition,
authenticity, origin, traceability and purity of a wide range of
products, as well as providing innovative clinical diagnostic
testing services and in-vitro diagnostic products.
Eurofins companies’ broad range of services are important for
the health and safety of people and our planet. The ongoing
investment to become fully digital and maintain the best network of
state-of-the-art laboratories and equipment supports our objective
to provide our customers with high-quality services, innovative
solutions and accurate results in the best possible turnaround time
(TAT). Eurofins companies are well positioned to support clients’
increasingly stringent quality and safety standards and the
increasing demands of regulatory authorities as well as the
evolving requirements of healthcare practitioners around the
world.
The Eurofins network has grown very strongly since its inception
and its strategy is to continue expanding its technology portfolio
and its geographic reach. Through R&D and acquisitions, its
companies draw on the latest developments in the field of
biotechnology and analytical chemistry to offer their clients
unique analytical solutions.
Shares in Eurofins Scientific S.E. are listed on the Euronext
Paris Stock Exchange (ISIN FR0014000MR3, Reuters EUFI.PA, Bloomberg
ERF FP).
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