Johnson & Johnson is negotiating the sale of DePuy Synthes, its entire orthopedics arm, to Apollo Global Management at a valuation approaching $20 billion, Bloomberg reported Friday. People familiar with the talks said an agreement could be reached within several weeks, though they cautioned that the process could still collapse, that a rival bidder could step in, or that J&J could abandon a sale altogether and float the unit instead.
The unit is wider than the shorthand suggests. Alongside hip, knee and shoulder implants it covers trauma, spine, sports medicine, craniomaxillofacial and even veterinary products, and trauma is the single largest of its four business lines. It booked $9.3 billion in revenue last year. J&J has said the business would rank as the largest orthopedics company in the world on its own, serving roughly seven million patients a year in a global market it puts north of $50 billion. Its main competitors are Stryker and Zimmer Biomet.
For Apollo, a transaction at that level would be its biggest healthcare bet to date. Several private equity firms have circled the asset, and Bloomberg reported in February that a group of buyout shops was weighing a joint approach. Representatives for both Apollo and J&J declined to comment.
The price under discussion sits below at least one outside estimate. Matt Henriksson of Bloomberg Intelligence has pegged the business at roughly $28 billion including debt, a gap that helps explain why J&J is keeping the public listing route open. Chief Financial Officer Joseph Wolk has been explicit that the company is judging the options on value rather than structure, and the mid-2027 target for completing the separation has not moved.
J&J set this in motion last October, when it announced it would carve out orthopedics to concentrate on faster-growing parts of the portfolio. The numbers behind that decision are not flattering. DePuy Synthes grew about 1.3% last year, essentially flat, and Wolk has described it to the Wall Street Journal as “a steady grower, but not outperforming.” The parent company’s second quarter told a different story: sales of $25.31 billion, up 6.6%, carried by Innovative Medicine. MedTech, the division that contains DePuy Synthes, turned in $8.93 billion, a 4.5% gain.
There is a certain symmetry to the price. J&J agreed to buy Synthes in April 2011 for $21.3 billion, at the time the largest acquisition in its history, and combined it with DePuy, which it had picked up in 1998 for $3.5 billion. Bill Weldon, then chief executive, said the goal was to build the most innovative and comprehensive orthopedics business anywhere. Fifteen years on, the company is prepared to let it go for less than it paid.
A sale would be J&J’s second major amputation in three years. In 2023 it spun out its consumer-health arm as Kenvue, taking Tylenol, Band-Aid, Listerine and Neutrogena with it. That business did not stay independent for long. Kimberly-Clark agreed in November 2025 to acquire Kenvue in a cash-and-stock deal valuing it at about $48.7 billion including debt, or roughly $40 billion on an equity basis. Shareholders on both sides approved it in January, and the companies expect to close by the end of this year.
The pattern is not unique to J&J. Novartis, Sanofi, GSK, Merck and Pfizer have all shed non-core units in recent years, and spinoffs have proved reliable targets once they are standing on their own. Kellanova went to Mars, W.K. Kellogg to Ferrero, and now Kenvue to Kimberly-Clark.
About Apollo Global Management
Apollo is a high-growth, global alternative asset manager. In our asset management business, we seek to provide our clients excess return at every point along the risk-reward spectrum from investment grade credit to private equity. For more than three decades, our investing expertise across our fully integrated platform has served the financial return needs of our clients and provided businesses with innovative capital solutions for growth. Through Athene, our retirement services business, we specialize in helping clients achieve financial security by providing a suite of retirement savings products and acting as a solutions provider to institutions. Our patient, creative, and knowledgeable approach to investing aligns our clients, businesses we invest in, our employees, and the communities we impact, to expand opportunity and achieve positive outcomes. To learn more, please visit www.apollo.com. Nothing herein constitutes an offer to sell, or a solicitation of an offer to buy, any security or product of Apollo or any Apollo-managed fund. Disclosures: https://l.apollo.com/social. Website: http://www.apollo.com
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