(Bloomberg) — Spectris Plc, a U.K. maker of precision and testing equipment, is exploring the sale of its Omega Engineering unit, according to people familiar with the matter.
The British company is working with an adviser on the sale of the U.S. process measurement and control instrumentation business, which it considers non-core, said the people. First-round bids for Omega are due in the coming weeks, they said, asking not to be identified because the discussions are private.
Shares of Spectris rose as much as 2.4% in early trading Wednesday. They were up 1.2% at 8:38 a.m. in London, giving the company a market value of about 2.9 billion pounds ($3.8 billion).
The sale is set to move ahead even after Spectris this week announced it would end negotiations to buy Oxford Instruments Plc, a producer of microscopes and lab supplies, citing the economic uncertainty caused by the war in Ukraine. The development marked one of the first big deals to be pulled because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the subsequent market volatility.
A representative for Spectris declined to comment.
Chief Executive Officer Andrew Heath, who took over Spectris in 2018, has been working on a turnaround of Omega Engineering including bringing in new management. The business is worth about 327 million pounds ($428 million), according to analyst estimates from HSBC Holdings Plc from February.
Spectris agreed to buy Connecticut-based Omega Engineering in 2011 for about $475 million. The business was founded in 1962 by Betty Hollander, who in her own home started engineering thermocouples, a temperature-measuring device used for everything from industrial processes to aircraft engines to automotive sensors as well as home appliances.
(Updates with share movement in third paragraph)
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