Is Aptuit going to be broken up?

Word on the street is that the VCs who own Aptuit want some cash out of their deal and are now looking at selling off pieces. Many say that their INDiGO™ program was a disaster and that divisions and sites never communicated with each other. Many clients got stung badly.

Many talk about one-stop shops for API to Clinic, but so far no one has pulled it off! It is too easy to go and buy parts; it takes real talented Management to integrate. No one like that exists out there. Too much inbreeding in this industry!

 

Aptuit (in Kansas City, MO) had a layoff this week. Aptuit will probably call it a "right-sizing" or something like that. Approximately 33 people were let go from Aptuit in KC. This is not a good time to be looking for a job. This could be a prelude to a sale of the Aptuit site in KC. Layoffs immediately make a company look more profitable. You can be sure that a high percentage of those laid off from Aptuit were senior people, you know, "old" people with a salary worth cutting. They have a history of doing this.

 

rumour has it they will be selling their packaging business, potential buyers have been seen viewing sites. more rumours of further redundancies in the UK following closure of some of the sites. not looking good for aptuit

 

craptuit finally broken up ? what a relief!

aptuit never fully integrated - which is quite ironic because it is supposed to be selling integrated solutions. employee morale is terrible as many non-executive workers are given high workloads

this is what happens when a company is run by greedy VCs counting their pennies. i hope they lost a lot of money

 

Aptuit just might thrive if they get out from under the $ sign only Welsh Carson control, who never infused needed capital and trimmed away the brain trust that is/was the company asset. The Iroko deal just announced looks promising. Good news for the KC employees and whoever buys them out. Greedy WC may hold out for too much money and blow it in the mean time though. Trimming the last 33 wasn't too obvious they are coking the books to look better on paper. Good luck to the employees remaining.

 

Aptuit are indeed selling of their clinical packaging and logistics businesses. These sites (Deeside, Bathgate, Mount laurel and Allendale) and also the Kansas City site are being sold off.

 

SOLD !!

 

I think this is the beginning of the end of Aptuit, the CTS business being sold off was arguably the most successful part of the company, hence the sell off to payback some of the VC $$$. What remains is being styled Scientific Operations, but looks like a bit of a grab bag of disparate businesses. I wouldn't be surprised if the rest is sold off in whole or parts too.

Aptuit has been a disappointment since it's founding, my site had 5 years of minimal investment and job cuts before being closed this year. Aptuit in some ways repeated the mistakes that Quintiles (the former owner of 5 Aptuit sites) made in the 90s: too much focus on acquisitions, with too little in the way of integration between all the stuff they bought.

As a result the sites operated largely independently of each other, using different procedures, software, report formats etc which reflected the origins of the different sites but did nothing for a seamless customer experience.

 

Funnily enough, one of the Quintiles management team recently commented how they could do with a preclinical site. After being told they sold off their preclincal site, he confirmed that he wasn't even aware they ever had one.

 

Bit late to buy it back now! The poor old Riccarton site is an empty shell now, with just a few dozen staff left working on the decomissioning.
On the positive side, most people seem to have found new jobs OK.

 

Heard through the grapevine that Mt. Laurel is laying most everyone off and shutting down by December. While I hope that the good workers find employment elsewhere, let me say this about the business practice that I experienced while working for Simirex/Quintiles/Aptuit. Simirex was a wonderful company to work for. It was customer AND employee based and there was good moral. When Quintiles bullied the owners into selling it to them, it was downhill from there. Promised improvements turned into more work, and less employee appreciation. Then comes the sale to Aptuit and pure HELL. The people that bought the site could have cared less about what was going on and the stress that was causing employees to get sick, and in some instances, die. Up yours Aptuit. I hope you disolve into absolute NOTHING which is what your increased workload/ decreased workforce and meritocracy CRAP of a business plan got you.

 

Allendale is closing too

 

Yep, Aptuit (Oxford) Ltd and Aptuit (Glasgow) Ltd. are now registered companies within the UK. Their accounts are therefore freely available. REMEMBER Aptuit HQ paid $64 million for these companies in 2006, combined book value today around minus £10 million. Hahahahahaha!!!!!
WCAS the VC's must be rueing the day! Hahahahahaheeee!!

If you are still unfortunate enough to work for either of these doomed companies then my advice is to abandon ship before the bailiffs arrive!

 

It is gone from the Mount Laurel area and I am so glad. While I hope the good people that worked there found other employment, and I am sure they did, the site was DOOMED the moment the investment company-backed Aptuit bought it. When greed and 'investment profit' is the goal of purchasing a company while having NO IDEA what that company does, the only outcome is exactly what happened with that site. Bye-bye Aptuit, you and Quintiles bullied a wonderful family into selling their company and you ran it into the ground and ruined countless peoples' lives and livelihoods. Kudos...hope you are sleeping like babies and having a good time looking into the mirror.