Bain Capital and Carlyle Offer US$ 3.8 Billion to Acquire Osram

Osram announced a confirmation of receiving a binding offer from Bain Capital and The Carlyle Group, the US-based private equity firms who have been in talk with the German company for a buyout since the end of 2018.

According to Osram, the inventors have offered an amount of EUR 35 (US$39.5) per share for the buyout, which will be approximately 3.4 billion euro ($3.8 billion) for concluding the investor agreement and to make a public takeover offer. Osram said, “The responsible decision bodies will discuss and decide on this offer shortly.”

Osram has been in a challenging time with its transformation goal from a lighting company into a high technology provider. After selling its lighting business LEDVANCE to Chinese MLS in 2017, Osram also announced to cut off luminaires business the year after. The company just reported the sale of Siteco to Stern Steward Capital in the end of June.

Despite the continuous restructuring, Osram is still facing difficulties of business decline and had cut its profit guidance twice in 2018 and adjusted its annual forecast for fiscal 2019 again in March due to slow growth.

In February, Osram confirmed that it has been in talk with Bain Capital and The Carlyle Group who showed interests to bid Osram, according to reports by Bloomberg and Financial Times in the end of 2018.