Lennar to buy U.S. Home for $36 a Share

Miami-based home builder Lennar Corp. late Wednesday said it agreed to buy Houston-based U.S. Home Corp. in a deal that would create the largest U.S. home builder, displacing Los Angeles-based Kaufman & Broad Home Corp. by some measures. Lennar would pay $36 a share for U.S. Home, 50% in stock and 50% in cash. The companies said the value of the deal is $476 million. The price is a 45% premium to U.S. Home’s closing share price of $24.88 on Wednesday. Lennar and U.S. Home are the fifth- and eighth-largest U.S. builders, respectively. Combined, they delivered 21,600 homes in 1999. But by that measure, Kaufman & Broad was still bigger, delivering more than 22,000 homes, although that included foreign operations. Lennar and U.S. Home would have annual revenue of $4.9 billion, versus $3.8 billion for Kaufman & Broad.