Agilent Wins Okay To Acquire Varian

Agilent Technologies has received clearance from the European Commission to acquire fellow scientific instrument maker Varian, subject to the sale of four businesses with combined annual sales of less than $100 million. The two firms must now look for buyers for Varian’s lab gas chromatography, triple quadrupole gas chromatography/mass spectrometry, and plasma mass spectrometry businesses, as well as Agilent’s micro gas chromatography business. Agilent says it is still awaiting U.S. government clearances and hopes to complete the $1.5 billion deal, made in July 2009, in early 2010.