ITT Inc. To Acquire Rheinhütte Pumpen Group; Raises Dividend - Quick Facts

(RTTNews) - ITT Inc. announced that it has signed an agreement to acquire Rheinhütte Pumpen Group, a designer and manufacturer of centrifugal and axial flow pumps, from Aliaxis Group S.A. The cash consideration was approximately $91.5 million. ITT Inc. expects the proposed transaction to be accretive to its earnings in the first full year after closing.

Rheinhütte is a provider of highly engineered pumps suited for the handling of aggressive media. Rheinhütte solutions serve specialty applications for the chemical, mining, renewable energy and refinery processes and include solutions for sulfuric acid, molten sulfur, fertilizer and chlorine-alkali electrolysis production among others.

Separately, ITT Inc. reported that its fourth-quarter adjusted EPS increased 28 percent to $0.82 reflecting net productivity benefits, lower corporate costs, and tax favorability due to the lower U.S. corporate tax rate and Italian rate reduction actions. Revenue was down 1% to $678 million. Organic revenue was up 1%, for the quarter.

For 2019, the company expects: organic revenue to be up 3 to 5 percent; and adjusted EPS to be in the range of $3.42 to $3.66 per share, up 10 percent at the midpoint.

Also, ITT Inc. announced that it is increasing its quarterly dividend to 14.7 cents per share on the company's outstanding stock. The ITT Board has approved the cash dividend for the first quarter of 2019, which will be payable on April 1, 2019, to shareholders of record as of the close of business on March 11, 2019.

The company said it is targeting up to $25 million of incremental new share repurchases which, when combined with the $25 million of share repurchases previously authorized in November 2018, could result in total repurchases of up to $50 million in 2019.