The Toro Company acquires The Charles Machine Works, Inc. (Ditch Witch)

The Toro Company acquired The Charles Machine Works, Inc. (Ditch Witch) for $700 million announced; $685.0 million final purchase price (aggregate merger consideration after customary adjustments), a transaction completed in April 2019, structured as all cash (term-loan and revolver financed). The deal was a Merger.

The Charles Machine Works, Inc. (Ditch Witch) operates in Professional, is based in Perry, Oklahoma, United States, had revenue of about approximately $725 million (calendar year 2018). Announced February 15, 2019 and completed April 1, 2019, Toro acquired privately held The Charles Machine Works, Inc. of Perry, Oklahoma — parent of the market-leading Ditch Witch brand and other underground-construction brands (including HammerHead, American Augers, Subsite, Trencor and Radius). The agreed price was $700 million in cash, subject to adjustments; the aggregate merger consideration was finalized at $685.0 million in Toro's fiscal fourth quarter of 2019. Toro funded the deal with a $500 million senior term-loan agreement plus revolver borrowings. Charles Machine Works generated calendar-year 2018 revenue of about $725 million and makes horizontal directional drills, trenchers, utility loaders, vacuum excavators, asset locators, pipe-rehabilitation solutions and after-market tools.

The deal expanded Toro meaningfully in an adjacent underground-construction category it already knew through its specialty-construction business, targeting growth from aging infrastructure replacement and new infrastructure for next-generation technologies such as 5G.

Complementary underground/specialty-construction portfolios; shared innovation, brand and dealer-channel model Professional segment (Ditch Witch and related underground brands)

Advisory firms were not disclosed for this transaction.