CVC Capital Partners, a European private equity group, and Téthys Invest are in exclusive talks to buy a majority stake in Sebia, a maker of instruments and reagents for in-vitro diagnostics.
The potential acquisition will give the company an enterprise value of around €2bn, a person with direct knowledge said.
The investors will buy the stake from Astorg and Montagu Private Equity.
Founded in 1967, Sebia is a global provider of clinical protein electrophoresis equipment and reagents, a technology used for in-vitro diagnostic testing.
The acquisition will sit within the strategic opportunities fund, which aims to invest in assets with up to a 14 per cent return threshold, lower than the typical private equity return of 20 per cent.
CVC could hold assets from between 8 to 12 years, which is longer than the typical four to six-year period in traditional private equity funds.
Large institutional investors have expressed appetite for such strategies because they are willing to accept lower returns in exchange for lower risk.
Pension funds, sovereign wealth funds and other large private equity investors are under a lot of pressure to deploy records amount of unspent capital.