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Deere makes its biggest acquisition ever

Ag/Outdoor

December 4th, 2017 by Ric Hanson

Deere and Company says it completed all the requirements to acquire a German company that makes road construction equipment. Regulators in more than 20 countries had to review and approve the deal that’s worth more than five BILLION dollars ($5.2) before it became final. Deere spokesman, Ken Golden, says the Wirtgen Group has factories in Brazil, China and India as well as German. “It is clearly the biggest acquisition in Deer’s history by about nine times,” Golden says,”and it fits right in with the strategy of John Deer to grow two major global businesses — agriculture and construction.”

Wirtgen employs 82-hundred people and doubles the size of the workforce in construction and forestry at Deere. Golden says it’s rare for Deere or any company to find another one to buy that has a similar culture, with no overlap in products. He says the company makes bulldozers and endloaders that are used in road construction, but they are not the machines that tear up old roadways, and those are the products that Wirtgen brings to Deere. The Wirtgen Group will enable Deere and Company to become to the world leader in road construction equipment. Deere has retained all five of Wirtgen’s existing brands, along with its employees and distribution network. “What we have found even when we were looking at the Wirtgen group, is their intense focus on the customer, their desire to build high-quality equipment and to be an innovator. And those are things that are true at Deere as well,” according to Golden. “So when you put that kind of philosophy that is very similar in two companies — we are really looking forward to how well this will work.”

The Wirtgen Group was a privately-held company before being acquired by Deere.

(Radio Iowa)