Precision Castparts may be biggest deal for an Oregon firm

PORTLAND — Precision Castparts, one of three Oregon companies on the Fortune 500, is near a deal to sell the business to Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, The Wall Street Journal reported Saturday.

It could be the biggest deal ever for an Oregon company, and the second multibillion dollar deal for a Portland business in the past month. On July 25, a Tokyo company called Meiji Yasuda Life Insurance Co. agreed to pay $5 billion for downtown Portland’s Standard Insurance Co.

Precision Castparts, which makes metal components for the aerospace, energy and industrial industries, had a market value of $26.7 billion at Friday’s close.

Historically, acquirers pay an average premium of 30 percent to acquire publicly traded companies, though the size of such premiums has slipped in the past few years. Even a modest premium, though, would value Precision Castparts at more than $30 billion — the biggest deal on record for an Oregon business.

Here’s a sampling of other multibillion-dollar deals in state history:

1997: Enron buys Portland General Electric for $3.1 billion

1997: First Bank System buys U.S. Bancorp (Portland) for $9.9 billion

1999: Kroger buys Fred Meyer for $13.5 billion (Fred Meyer purchased in 1982 by KKR)

1999: ScottishPower buys PacifiCorp (Portland) for $10.9 billion

2002: Weyerhaeuser buys Willamette Industries (Portland) for $7.9 billion

2006: MidAmerican Energy Holdings Co. buys PacifiCorp for $9.2 billion

2006: Evraz Group acquires Oregon Steel Mills Inc. for $2.3 billion

2007: Brookfield Asset Management buys Longview Fibre Co. for $2.15 billion

2007: Danaher Corp. buys Tektronix Inc. for $2.85 billion

2015: Japanese insurance company Meiji Yasuda Life Insurance Co. strikes a $5 billion deal for Standard Insurance Co.