The sale of Phenomenex Inc. to science and technology giant Danaher Corp. last week came with a little something extra for the company’s employees: cash.

Chief Executive Fasha Mahjoor, who owns 90 percent of the chromatography company he founded in 1982, is doling out $12 million in bonuses in the wake of his decision to sell. Terms of the deal haven’t been disclosed. Some reports have pegged the deal at around $700 million, although Mahjoor said those estimates were way off.

“The speculation has been wrong,” he said, but declined to give an exact number.

What’s indisputable is that Mahjoor is now much richer and passing along a bit of that wealth to Phenomenex’s rank and file. He said about 95 percent of his approximately 800 employees (more than half of whom are at the Torrance headquarters) – anyone who was with the company before Jan.1, 2015 – would be sharing in the $12 million bonus pool, although exact payouts would be determined based on service.

O’Melveny & Myers and PricewaterhouseCoopers advised Mahjoor on the deal.

Other than the bonuses, Mahjoor said it’s business as usual for company, which manufactures and sells products needed to separate elements in science labs. While he wouldn’t reveal company revenue, an industry publication estimated Phenomenex generates upward of $200 million in sales and Mahjoor said it sees yearly growth between 10 percent and 11 percent.

While he claims nothing will change under the new owner, Phenomenex has been known to operate a bit differently than other businesses. The office’s irreverent culture stems directly from Mahjoor, who also owns Torrance’s Neoteryx and serves as that microsampling firm’s chief executive. Known for doing things such as jumping off a skyscraper for charity, he also claims to have conducted a job interview with a prospective employee while wearing only a towel after co-workers pelted him with water balloons in the office parking lot. There’s also a group of Phenomenex employees who gather regularly at the office gym to do the P90X workout during business hours. The firm dedicates both money and personnel to charities and philanthropic organizations such as the American Red Cross and Outward Bound.

Preserving this unorthodox work environment was part of what held Mahjoor, 62, back from selling the business sooner – he said he’s rebuffed dozens of buyout offers over the past 15 to 20 years.

“It had to be someone who would appreciate the unorthodoxy of Phenomenex and who would provide opportunities for my colleagues,” Mahjoor said.

And he said the Danaher deal does that. The Fortune 150 company will keep Phenomenex as a standalone operation with Mahjoor as president. The deal also will allow the company to integrate with Sciex, a Danaher-owned chromatography business based in Massachusetts that Phenomenex already works with regularly.

Try, try again

Rainer Blair, former president of Sciex who now serves as chief executive of Danaher’s Pall Corp., was integral in putting the deal together.

Mahjoor said Blair has been wearing him down for nearly seven years about selling. And he almost capitulated sooner.

“Three and a half years ago I said, ‘Fine, I’ll sell,’” Mahjoor said. “We went through a year and a half of due diligence and then three days before signing I wrote them a letter saying I couldn’t do it.”

But Danaher, through Blair, stayed persistent and came back with another offer. This time, they found Mahjoor more receptive.

“The passage of time has an effect on you,” said Mahjoor, who came to the United States in 1978 from the United Kingdom after emigrating from Iran. “In the past two years – I don’t know what’s happened to me – every time I hear someone has died on the radio I listen to hear how old they were.”

The sale is also somewhat of an affirmation for Mahjoor, who still vividly remembers being shunned by major science and technology players such as DuPont and Hewlett Packard while building his business.

“They all laughed at me,” he said “But the more they said you’re nothing and you won’t make it, the more it motivated me to be successful.”