Onex Corp once again puts Carestream Health for sale

Private equity firm Onex Corp has once again put Carestream Health for sale and is exploring a breakup of the US medical imaging company, Reuters yesterday reported, citing people familiar with the matter.

Onex has hired Goldman Sachs to find a buyer for Carestream Health's film and digital medical imaging business, while Jefferies LLC has been assigned to seek a sale of the dental imaging business, the report said.

The move comes two years after buyers shied away from buying the company citing Carestream's uncertain outlook.

In the 2013 auction, private equity firms Bain Capital and Thomas Lee Partners were the only two suitors left in the race after Carlyle Group and KKR & Co withdrew from the sale process.

Onex abandoned the sale process after it received offers of only $2.5 billion, while it was seeking around $3.5 billion.

Carestream was formed in 2007 when Toronto-based Onex acquired Eastman Kodak Co's Health Group for a reported $2.35 billion and renamed the business as Carestream Health.

Based in Rochester, New York, Carestream is a provider of dental and medical imaging systems and cloud-based healthcare IT solutions, x-ray film and digital x-ray systems for non-destructive testing, and advanced materials for the precision films and electronics markets.

With more than 800 patents for medical and dental imaging and information technology, the company has tens of thousands of customers, operations in 170 countries and 2015 revenues of $2.1 billion.