Quest Diagnostics Inc. 's purchase of American Medical Laboratories Inc. (AML) for $500 million cash (including assumption of $160 million in debt) is one of a string of acquisitions made by large national laboratories in recent years [See Deal]. While it is by no means Quest's biggest or most strategically critical deal, it gives the nation's largest clinical laboratory a presence in two markets in which it was weak or had no presence, and shores up its rapidly growing esoteric testing business. The deal also eliminates a competitor.
AML, a regional reference laboratory with $300 million in revenues, and $40 million in EBIDTA, has a strong routine laboratory...