Doosan Infracore has agreed to pay $4.9 billion to acquire Ingersoll Rand’s construction equipment businesses, including Bobcat, the world’s largest manufacturer of compact equipment. The deal is the biggest ever overseas acquisition by a South Korean company, and is the also the largest ever acquisition in the construction equipment sector.

The acquisition includes Ingersoll Rand’s attachments and utility equipment businesses, as well as Bobcat. These had total sales of US$ 2.6 billion last year, and generated operating profits of US$ 370 million. The assets being acquired include 16 factories in six countries around the world, and it also gives Doosan access to a network of more than 2700 dealers in the US and Europe.

Upon completion of the transaction, Doosan will have a combined network of more than 3700 dealers worldwide, and 20 manufacturing plants. According to the company, the deal will also make it the seventh largest construction equipment manufacturer in the world.

The acquisition will increase Doosan’s annual sales to some US$ 7.4 billion, a figure that includes its diesel engine, forklift truck, machine tool and defence equipment businesses alongside construction equipment. By iC’s estimates, the 2006 pro-forma sales of the two companies’ construction equipment activities would be US$ 4.2 billion.

Yongmaan Park, vice chairman of Doosan Infracore commented, “The businesses we are acquiring have outstanding management personnel and engineers, which we consider to be the most important criteria of our acquisition strategy. We therefore plan to maintain the current management to best utilise their expertise and skills in an effort to evolve Doosan Infracore into a truly global company.”

Doosan says that it will continue to run its existing businesses and the Ingersoll Rand businesses separately following the acquisition. This includes maintaining separate dealer networks.