Royal Philips NV is in discussion to sell its lighting-components division, Lumileds to American private equity firm, Apollo Global Management LLC, reported Bloomberg Technology.
After other private equity firms exited from the negotiation, Apollo now is the likeliest buyer of Lumileds. Although Philips aims at closing the case by the end of October, there’s no guarantee of success on the spin-off, said an anonymous people with information of the matter.
Philips is in discussions with interested buyers, said Steve Klink, a spokesman of Philips. Philips spun off the lighting division in May, and now it’s attempting to sell Lumileds and focus on health care business.
Philips Chief Executive Officer Frans van Houten said that it’s likely that Lumileds will sell less than the original price back in January when in talk with GO Scale Capital. According to ING’s estimation, Lumields is worth US $2 billion.
Meanwhile, some couldn’t help but start to wonder whether Philips is capable of closing Lumileds’ sale before the end of 2016. If the company fail to do so, it would no doubt impact on Philips’ transformation.