ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, November 27, 1996 TAG: 9611270029
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: SANDRA BROWN KELLY STAFF WRITER
Chesapeake X-Ray Corp., a Roanoke Valley company that distributes and services radiology and imaging products for medical diagnoses, has signed a merger agreement with Physician Sales & Service Inc. of Jacksonville, Fla.
Chesapeake owner Shirley Lamanca said the merger gives the company access to national contracts with hospital companies and clinics. "It was the way we felt our company needed to go," she said Tuesday. Chesapeake makes products used in Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina. It has seven warehouses and 68 employees. It was founded in 1977 by Lamanca and her husband, John Lamanca. John Lamanca, president, will continue to run it under its own name as a subsidiary of Physician Sales, she said.
Shirley Lamanca is secretary-treasurer of Chesapeake, but said she will retire once the merger is completed.
Acquiring Chesapeake is part of a new direction for Physician Sales and marks its entry into imaging services. Simultaneous with the Chesapeake deal, Physician Sales has a merger agreement with X-Ray Corp. of Georgia, based in Atlanta. Combined, the two companies had $95 million in sales in the past 12 months, said a Physician Sales spokesman.
Both mergers are to be stock-for-stock transactions. Physician Sales & Services said it will issue $7 million in shares of common stock for Chesapeake and $11 million worth for X-Ray of Georgia. The company will assume $3.7 million in debt for Chesapeake and $3.1 million debt for X-Ray.
The transactions make publicly traded Physician Sales the market leader in X-ray supplies and equipment in the Southeast and put it in second place nationally, said Patrick Kelly, chairman and chief executive officer.
For the quarter ended Sept. 30, Physician Sales reported a 35 percent increase in sales, to $161.9 million. Net income was $3.8 million. Sales for the six months of this fiscal year were $301.6 million and net income was $1.9 million, or 5 cents a share.
The company announced in September that it would merge with Diagnostic Imaging Inc., a Jacksonville radiology and imaging equipment distributer with 13 locations in five states.
LENGTH: Short : 45 linesby CNB