Monday, March 31, ICON announced its intention to acquire Aptiv Solutions, a provider of global outsourced development services, for roughly $145 million. The company focuses on technology to enable adaptive clinical trials—a nice complement to ICON’s existing software offering through Firecrest and ICONIK. In addition, Aptiv owns an oncology focused full service CRO in Japan.

Though terms were not disclosed in the release, we assume Aptiv generates revenue per employee of $125,000 to $150,000, and thus we estimate that its 850 employees generate more than $100 million in revenue. If we assume Aptiv has EBITDA margins approaching 10%, the price tag suggests ICON paid a multiple between 10 and 15 times forward EBITDA.

At these levels, it is reasonable to anticipate that this acquisition will be slightly accretive to 2014 EPS, even if it does not begin contributing until mid-May. The annual contribution to EPS based on a revenue base of $125 million, EBITDA of roughly 10%, a D&A burden consistent with the broader company, and lost interest income of about $2.8 million, could be about $0.06. If the acquisition closes in mid-May, this would imply a $0.04 improvement to EPS for 2014.