Atlanta's Beazer Homes agrees to buy Crossmann In $603 million deal

NEW YORK - Beazer Homes USA Inc. agreed to acquire homebuilder Crossmann Communities Inc. in a cash-and-stock transaction the companies valued at about $603 million, including the assumption of debt. <br> <br> The combination of Atlanta&#39;s Beazer and Indianapolis&#39; Crossmann will create the nation&#39;s sixth-largest homebuilding company, according to the companies. Beazer said Crossmann will become a wholly owned unit of Beazer under terms of the deal. <br> <br> The deal will provide Beazer, one of the country&#39;s 10 largest single-family homebuilders, with access to the Midwest. Crossmann is a regional builder of single-family homes in Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina and South Carolina. <br> <br> Beazer has operations in Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Maryland, Nevada, New Jersey, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia. <br> <br> The deal is subject to approval by regulators and both companies&#39; shareholders, and may be terminated if all conditions to closing aren&#39;t satisfied, the companies said. The transaction is expected to close in the next 90 to 120 days. <br> <br> Based upon an anticipated closing date in the third quarter, Beazer expects the deal to be neutral to its fiscal 2002 earnings and to add approximately $1 a share to earnings in fiscal 2003. <br> <br> Analysts polled by Thomson Financial/First Call expect Beazer to earn $9.55 a share in 2002 and $10.62 a share in 2003. <br> <br> New York Stock Exchange-listed Beazer Homes shares traded Wednesday afternoon at $81.35, down 15 cents, or 0.2 percent. In the past 12 months, the Atlanta company earned $84.43 million on revenue of $1.93 billion. <br> <br> <br>

http://accesswdun.com/article/2002/1/199454