Granite Construction is set to acquire drilling company Layne Christensen to expand its presence in the water infrastructure and pipe rehabilitation market. Richard Watts, Granite's vice president, general counsel, corporate compliance officer and secretary has been elected senior vice president and group manager of the new water and mineral services group while Layne's former director Alan Krusi will join the board of directors.
Under the $536m merger agreement, Layne shareholders will receive 5.62m shares of Granite stock representing approximately 12% of Granite’s outstanding shares on a post-close basis. Additionally, Granite has paid $28.7m to settle outstanding restricted stock units and assumed net debt with a market value of $180.5m.
James Roberts, president and chief executive officer of Granite, says: “As we have advanced our integration planning efforts over the past months, our teams’ combined effort has been focused on leveraging the highly complementary operations and strong cultural foundations of both organisations.
The transaction is subject to the satisfaction of all closing conditions which also includes approval from Layne stockholders.
