When Ingersoll-Rand (NYSE:IR) completes its buyout of Trane (NYSE:TT), the resulting company will likely make investors yawn. Some will find themselves sleepy because the combined firm lacks the sex appeal of hot firms like Google. But others will be resting easier, secure in the knowledge that they can forget about the company for long periods, yet still reap fine returns.
The $10.1 billion merger of the two more-or-less equal firms was announced on Monday. It's expected to create a company with roughly $17 billion in annual revenue, including 65% from climate control equipment.
Ingersoll is involved in an array of industrial products, from stationary refrigeration equipment to golf carts. Trane's stock-in-trade is air conditioners and their servicing, an area that holds abundant potential in many parts of the developing world. The combined company will lag only United Technologies (NYSE:UTX) in the climate-control area.
Trane shareholders will receive about three-fourths of the deal in cash; Ingersoll-Rand will pay $36.50, plus 0.23 of its shares, for each Trane share. The transaction is expected to close sometime in the first or second quarter of 2008, and the companies predict it will create $300 million in annual pre-tax synergies by 2010.
This planned combination represents the latest -- and easily the largest -- step in Ingersoll's movement away from cyclical operations. Last month, it closed on a $4.9 billon sale of its Bobcat equipment operations to Doosan Infracore of South Korea. Earlier this year, it took $1.3 billion from Volvo for a unit that makes road-construction equipment.
In my opinion, Ingersoll-Rand has been excessively overlooked by the market. Despite Warren Buffett's affection for the company, it's gotten short shrift, possibly because of its lack of sex appeal and less-than-sizzling growth record.
Ingersoll-Rand will remain a boring company, but management has predicted that the new firm should generate "EPS growth exceeding 15% per year." That's not bad for a company all but guaranteed to let you sleep at night.
For related Foolishness:
As Foolanthropy enters its second decade, join us in working to bring financial education to the world's children. Learn more about Foolanthropy's new direction.
