LONDON: KKR & Co has agreed to buy Spectris Plc in a deal that values the UK maker of precision and testing equipment and software at about £4.1bil (US$5.6bil), surpassing an earlier bid by a consortium led by Advent.
The bid values Spectris at about £40 per share, including £39.72 in cash and a 28 pence-per-share dividend, KKR said in a statement yesterday.
The offer is a 6.3% premium over the Advent offer, and Spectris’s board has unanimously recommended the offer, the firm said.
The private equity firms are competing for the company, which develops high-tech instruments, testing equipment and software used in sectors such as life sciences.
Advent had offered £37.63 in cash, including a proposed interim dividend of £0.28 per share, last month. — Bloomberg
