ResMed to move house

Medical device company ResMed has sold its North Ryde facility as it prepares to move to new, larger premises at Sydney's Norwest Business Park.

ResMed CFO Adrian Smith said contracts had been exchanged for the sale of the facility as well as a three-year lease-back, with a further one year option.

Macquarie Goodman, one of the larger property trusts in Australia, acquired the facility for $34 million, providing ResMed with a profit of $10.6 million before fees and taxes.

The cash made available from the sale will go toward the construction of ResMed's new facility, located in Sydney's north-west. In three years, the new facility is expected to be complete with a manufacturing plant double the size of the current one.

Smith said the NSW government had continued to provide ResMed with tax incentives to assist in the growth of the company, as well as to develop the new Norwest facility.

There had been murmurs that the company would move its manufacturing and R&D base offshore, in line with the fact that its biggest markets are the US and Europe and its main line of distribution and sales is in San Diego.

But that was never an option, Smith said. "We stayed in Australia because it was a good cost-effective place to do manufacturing and it's one of the world's leading centres of sleep medicine, so it provides a great place for research," he said.

"There is a whole industry that comes out of one Australian invention, and this (ResMed) is the direct descendant of that invention. We have no intention of leaving."