KKR & Co to acquire US machinery maker Gardner Denver for $3.74 bn

Four months after the US industrial machinery maker Gardner Denver Inc put itself up for sale, private equity firm KKR & Co (KKR) has secured a deal to acquire it for $3.74 billion in cash.

KKR has offered$76 per share, a premium of 3 per cent to Gardner Denver's closing price on the New York Stock Exchange on Thursday, and 39 per cent above 25 October 2012 price, the day before the company said it was exploring a sale.

The deal is valued at $3.9 billion including debt, Gardner Denver said in a statement.

On 26 October 2012, Pennsylvania-based Gardner had said that it was ''exploring strategic alternatives to enhance shareholder value. These alternatives could include, among other things, enhancing the company's existing strategic plan or a possible sale or merger of the company.'' (See: US industrial machinery maker Gardner Denver explores sell-off)

The sale attracted interest from private equity firms like KKR, Advent International, a consortium of TPG Capital and Onex Corp as well as from diversified machinery company SPX Corp.

But the Onex Corp-TPG Capital team and Advent International backed out partly because Gardner Denver was slow to assist them with due diligence, Bloomberg had then reported.