French Firm Reportedly Seeks to Buy U.S. Filter Corp.
U.S. Filter Corp., the world’s leading water and waste-water treatment company, on Sunday was negotiating a deal to be acquired by Vivendi, a leading French industrial group, sources said.
Officials at U.S. Filter did not return phone calls seeking comment. Sources said a deal could be announced as early as today.
On Wednesday, shares of U.S. Filter rose 20% to close at $29.94 a share in a flurry of trading on rumors that the company was a takeover candidate. Possible buyers mentioned last week included Enron Corp., the Houston-based energy giant, and General Electric Co., the Fairfield, Conn., conglomerate.
U.S. Filter’s shares closed at $30.50 a share Friday in New York Stock Exchange trading.
As part of the deal being put together over the weekend, Vivendi would pay a reported $31.50 a share for U.S. Filter, putting the rumored price at about $5.7 billion, plus assumption of debt.
U.S. Filter has grown into a world leader by acquiring more than 100 companies since it was founded in 1990. The company now has more than 27,000 employees worldwide and 100 manufacturing plants in 94 countries, including Egypt, Mexico and Germany.
As part of the deal, Richard Heckmann, founder, chairman and chief executive of U.S. Filter, would remain with the company, sources said. He could head U.S. operations or lead a spinoff of the firm’s U.S. operations.
Vivendi, headquartered in Paris, is a huge conglomerate that serves the water purification and distribution market, as well as the energy, waste management, construction, urban development and health care businesses. The company, run by Chairman and CEO Jean-Marie Messier, has nearly 200,000 employees worldwide.
If completed, the deal would be part of a wave of takeovers of American companies by foreign firms looking to get a piece of the highly profitable U.S. market.
So far this year, the flurry of such deals has included Britain-based Vodafone’s deal to acquire AirTouch Communications Inc. for about $65 billion.
