Steris, an Ohio-based medical technology company, said on Monday that it has offered to buy Swindon, England-based sterilization services provider Synergy Health Plc for $1.9 billion in cash and stock. The deal would create a new company in the U.K., allowing Steris to redomicile there and save on taxes.
Steris’ planned deal is the second so-called inversion deal since the U.S. Department of the Treasury tightened its regulations in late September on U.S. companies seeking to redomicile abroad to avoid paying U.S. taxes. However, according to Bloomberg, Steris’ management said its new tax structure is not in conflict with U.S. laws and the company is not doing anything that would trigger the Treasury Department’s new regulations, including decreasing its business activity in the U.S. to less than 25 percent or having its current shareholders own at least 60 percent of the shares of the new company.
