Ebos goes shopping again

ACQUISITIVE Ebos has done it again, buying its third Australian health business in a year.

The Christchurch medical supplies company's 67 per cent-owned subsidiary, Auckland's Global Science, has bought Brisbane-based Quantum Scientific.

The purchase, along with Ebos' recent enlargement of its Global Science stake from 47.5 per cent, are together worth about $11 million.

Both are national health product marketing and distribution businesses with similar products and market reach, Ebos managing director Mark Waller said.

"They're a great marriage," he said.

Ebos would be taking a breather for a while, Waller said, but had a good "prospect list" of other potential buys.

Waller said the reason for the expansion was big medical supplies manufacturers tended to see New Zealand and Australia as a single block, and preferred to deal with one business covering the region.

"It's part offensive and part defensive," he said.

- NZPA