Group Offers $760 Million for Pennwalt

Pennwalt Corp. received a $760-million takeover offer Monday from a New York investor group, boosting the chemical maker’s stock price and setting the stage for what analysts called a possibly nasty fight.

Pennwalt officials declined to comment immediately on the cash tender offer from Centaur Partners, an investment partnership headed by two East Coast financiers who already own 12.7% of the company’s 7.6 million shares outstanding and are offering $100 a share for the rest.

The offer came amid a major restructuring of Pennwalt that was aimed partly at thwarting unwelcome suitors. Wall Street strategists who follow the Philadelphia company said there was plenty of room for the bidding to go higher.

And in a signal that the bidders expected a fight, they sued Pennwalt in Philadelphia federal court to block its so-called poison pill defense, which Pennwalt and many other companies have adopted to thwart unwelcome bids.

Pennwalt manufactures and markets industrial chemicals used in a range of products, from swimming pool chlorine to the chemical that produces the odor in natural gas that enables consumers to detect leaks.

Pennwalt has nearly 9,000 employees and annual sales exceeding $1 billion.