Ashland To Sell Water Tech. Unit To Clayton Dubilier For $1.8 Bln. - Update

(RTTNews) - Specialty chemicals company Ashland Inc. (ASH), Tuesday agreed to sell its water technologies unit to private investment firm Clayton, Dubilier & Rice for about $1.8 billion.

Ashland expects net proceeds from the sale to be about $1.4 billion, which will mainly be used for share repurchases. The company announced a $1.35 billion share buyback, replacing an earlier program that had $450 million of authorization remaining.

Ashland Water Technologies or AWT serves customers in the pulp, paper, power generation, mining, oil & gas refining, and other end markets. The unit has annual revenues of $1.7 billion and operates 31 facilities globally.

Covington, Kentucky-based Ashland expects the deal to close by September.

Clayton Dubilier was reported to be among one of three bidders for the Ashland unit. Last November, Ashland revealed plans to exit the water-chemicals business while enhancing its additives business.

Ashland in 2011 acquired International Specialty Products Inc. for $3.2 billion to benefit from the sale of higher-margin ingredients used in personal-care products and pharmaceuticals.

Ashland stock is trading at $96.60, up $0.42 or 0.44%, on a volume of 510 thousand shares on the NYSE.