Health & Medical
The new deal
How John Ballbach helped VWR International become an acquisition success story by leveraging his company’s talent and resources
By Erik Cassano
Smart Business Philadelphia | October 2008
Page 1 of 3
VWR International LLC has a stated goal, summed up
succinctly by the its chairman, president and CEO, John
Ballbach: “We supply all of the items used in a research laboratory, so we position ourselves as that one-stop shop — anything you need to run a laboratory anywhere in the world,” he
says.
However, the goal that can be summed up in a few sentences
takes many hours of work and drawing from many different
resources to turn into a reality.
For Ballbach and his management team at VWR, maintaining
a presence as a global one-stop shop for medical research laboratory supplies means a carefully developed approach to
external growth.
One of the main pillars of VWR’s growth strategy is acquisitions, of which it has completed seven since April 2005. VWR’s
leaders seek out companies that can add new geographies and
new competencies to VWR’s array of products and services.
External growth has allowed VWR — a company with $3.5 billion in 2007 net sales — to develop a presence in both Europe
and Asia.
“We have significant operations in over 20 countries, but we
distribute into many more countries than that,” Ballbach says.
“One of the reasons why acquisitions have been an important
part of our strategy is because our customers are globalizing.
They are looking for a select few distributors to handle their
business on a global basis.”
Growing through acquisitions has meant frequent change for
employees, an ability to adhere to well-defined plans and a
willingness on Ballbach’s part to oversee it all from start to finish.
