Rank paying $1.2b for car parts group

Graeme Hart. Photo / Martin Sykes

New Zealand billionaire Graeme Hart is spending US$950 million ($1.2 billion) to buy the automotive Consumer Products Group owned by the giant United States corporation Honeywell.

Hart's private investment firm Rank Group will pay cash for the automotive CPG, based in Danbury, Connecticut, the New York Times reported. The company being bought by Auckland-based Rank makes Prestone antifreeze, Fram filters and Autolite sparkplugs among other brands. It had sales of US$1 billion last year.

"While CPG is a good business, it doesn't fit with our portfolio of differentiated, global technologies," said Dave Cote, the chief executive of Honeywell. The newspaper reported the deal was part of a big push in the United States by Rank, which late last year agreed to acquire UCI International, another car parts company, for US$605 million, including taking on the company's debt from the Carlyle Group.

And earlier in the year, Rank made a deal to pay US$6 billion for the packaging giant Pactiv, the maker of Hefty bags.

- NZPA