Siemens, Carlyle Near $2.4 Billion Deal Over Flender Business

U.S. buyout group Carlyle Group Inc is nearing an agreement to acquire Siemens AG's mechanical drive arm Flender, for about 2 billion euros ($2.37 billion), Bloomberg News reported citing sources.

Siemens and Carlyle are finalizing terms of the deal that could be announced as early as this week, the report said.

Last week Siemens had asked Triton, Carlyle, CVC and Brookfield to submit final offers next week for the business, which has earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortization of just above 200 million euros and could be valued at 8-9 times that, according to sources.

Brookfield was outbid by Carlyle in the end, the report said, adding that the talks could still be delayed or fall apart.

Siemens declined to comment, Carlyle did not immediately respond to a request for a comment.

Flender supplies Winergy branded gear boxes and generators for wind turbines, gears and couplings for cranes, ships, oil and gas production, as well as components for the chemicals, pharma, cement and food industries.

Siemens bought Flender, which traces its roots back to a 19th century maker of belt pulleys, from Babcock Borsig in 2005. Flender has, however, not lived up to Siemens’ growth and profitability expectations.

The divestiture is a part of the industrial conglomerate’s plans to streamline its operations.

($1 = 0.8436 euros)

(Reporting by Aishwarya Nair; Additional reporting by Alexander Hübner)