Canada-based industrial equipment maker Groupe Laperriere & Verreault, has announced plans to acquire Salt Lake City-based Eimco Process Equipment.
GL&V said negotiations for the purchase are ongoing, but the company expects the deal to be completed in October.
Terms of the tentative agreement were not disclosed.
Laurent Verreault, GL&V chairman and chief executive, said the acquisition would be the largest ever for GL&V.
The acquisition would help GL&V ride out fluctuations in the paper and pulp industry -- an industry that now accounts for 70 per cent of the company's $350 million (€358m) in annual revenue.
GL&V wants to expand its mining-and-mineral sector as well as its water-and-municipal sector, Verreault said. After the acquisition, GL&V would depend on paper and pulp for only 40 per cent of its total revenue.
Eimco "fits all the criteria we're looking at," he said.
Eimco develops and manufactures equipment used by customers in mining, industrial and food industries to separate liquids from solids.
About 400 people work at Eimco's manufacturing factory and offices in Salt Lake City. The company also has about 300 employees in 14 offices worldwide.
GL&V will probably see some savings when it consolidates some of Eimco's overseas offices with its own, Verreault said. The company has not yet decided what will happen to the Salt Lake City operations, he said.
Gary Flaharty, a spokesman for Eimco's parent company, Houston-based Baker Hughes said the decision to sell Eimco was part of a "long-term strategy to focus on oil-field service," which makes up 95 percent of Baker Hughes' business.
Eimco, which had 2001 sales of about $180 million, accounts for about 5 per cent of Baker Hughes' business.
GL&V, founded in 1975, designs and manufactures equipment used in pulp and paper production, mining, chemical and food processing.