Korean firm buys Bobcat diggers

Bobcat makes a wide range of machinery

US conglomerate Ingersoll-Rand is selling its Bobcat industrial machinery business to South Korean firm Doosan Infracore for $4.9bn (£2.4bn).

The deal, which also includes the sale of Ingersoll's utility equipment and attachment units, is the largest overseas takeover in Korean history.

Doosan will now become the world's seventh largest maker of construction equipment, and nearly double its sales.

Ingersoll is shifting its focus to its air conditioning and security work.

'Global maker'

The sale of Bobcat also reduces Ingersoll's exposure to the continuing downturn in the US house building sector.

It comes four months after Ingersoll sold its road-building equipment business to Swedish firm Volvo for $1.3bn.

Doosan is already South Korea's largest construction and machinery equipment company.

"The acquisition will help Doosan become a global heavy machinery maker as it can add models which it could not [previously] produce, with technologies from the US company," said Song Jae-hak, an analyst at Woori Investment & Securities.

Doosan is financing the all-cash deal predominately through debt, spending only $700m of its existing funds.