Newport Beach-based dental products maker Sybron Dental Specialties Inc. is being bought for $2 billion by Washington, D.C.-based tools maker Danaher Corp.
The offer to buy Sybron at $47 a share is 12% higher than where the company’s shares closed at on Tuesday. Sybron had a market value of $1.7 billion before the offer.
Danaher is taking on about $200 million in Sybron debt. The deal is set to close in the quarter.
Sybron, which is based in Newport Beach with operations in Orange, makes filling materials, bonding agents, sterilization products used by dentists and braces, bands, wires and other gear used by orthodontists.
Danaher makes Crasftman tools for Sears, as well as some dental instruments, bar code readers and industrial products. It counts yearly sales of $8 billion.
The deal stands to end a relatively short run as a stand-alone company for Sybron.
In 2000, the company spun off from Sybron International, then a Milwaukee-based maker of medical laboratory gear that changed its name to Apogent Technologies Inc. and now is part of New Hampshire’s Fisher Scientific International Inc.
The buyout stands to be the third major one of an Orange County company in the past five months.
In December, Cypress-based PacifiCare Health Systems Inc. was bought by Minnetonka, Minn.-based UnitedHealth Group Inc. for $9.2 billion in the largest buyout yet for the county.
Earlier this year, Irvine-based bank holding company Westcorp Inc. and its auto finance unit WFS Financial Inc. were bought by Charlotte, N.C.-based Wachovia Corp. for $3.9 billion.
