Bain Capital in £200m deal for Plasma Resources UK Bain Capital, the private equity group, is to pay up to £200m to take control of Plasma Resources UK, the blood plasma business put up for sale by the government. PRUK, which supplies a third of the National Health Service's blood plasma needs and sells products around the world, generates annual revenues of about £110m. The deal, by which Bain will acquire 80 per cent of the company, includes an upfront payment of £90m and a planned further £110m in five years, as well as investment in the business of an additional £50m. The Department of Health will retain a 20 per cent stake. The price and equity split were in line with the government's objectives set when the privatisation was announced in January, in a process co-ordinated by Lazard, the investment bank. Robin Marshall, managing director of Bain Capital in the UK, said the firm would invest in PRUK to "increase production capacity, refurbish and maintain the existing facilities, develop new products and expand the company's international reach." The business, which was owned directly by the NHS until 2010, includes Bio Products Laboratory, in Elstree, Hertfordshire, which makes blood plasma products, and DCI Biologicals in the US, which collects and sells blood plasma. Dan Poulter, health minister, said: "This deal will ensure that patients will have access to high quality plasma products for years to come. Bain Capital was chosen following a fair and open competitive process which looked at who offered the best deal for patients, and to ensure future employment at the company. But the deal was criticised by Lord Owen, former health minister, who told The Independent: "It's hard to conceive of a worse outcome for a sale of this particularly sensitive national health asset than a private equity company with none of the safeguards in terms of governance of a publicly quoted company and being answerable to shareholders. "Private equity has a useful function, as I saw in years past on the advisory board of Terra Firma, but Bain Capital should not have been chosen for this sale."" Bain Capital was chosen following a fair and open competitive process which looked at who offered the best deal for patients Dan Poulter, health minister Responding to the criticism on the BBC's Today programme on Friday, Vince Cable, business secretary, acknowledged that a blood donor system was "a unique feature of a society where there's a lot of trust that people give blood, that that blood is then used in an anonymous way for other people" and said he "certainly wouldn't want to see that undermined by any thoughtless commercial activity." "But if the basic principles of the blood donor system are preserved, I wouldn't want to stand in the way of the government deriving some revenue from it.""