Ricoh to buy equipment distributor Ikon for $1.62b

NEW YORK - Ricoh Co., Japan's second-largest maker of office machines, agreed to buy equipment distributor Ikon Office Solutions Inc. for $1.62 billion to expand its sales and services operations in the United States.

Ricoh offered to pay $17.25 a share, Ikon said in a statement yesterday. That's an 11 percent premium over Ikon's closing price of $15.56 Tuesday.

The deal adds Ikon's 400 sales locations in the United States, Canada, and Western Europe to Ricoh's business, which is primarily based in Japan. The acquisition takes the last independent printer distributor in North America off the market after Global Imaging Systems Inc. and the US unit of Danka Business Systems PLC were bought in the last 18 months.

"It's a reasonable price," said Shannon Cross, an analyst with Cross Research in Livingston, N.J. "Ricoh gets an expanded US distribution network. There's not another asset like it anymore."

Ikon, based in Malvern, Pa., got 87 percent of its 2007 sales of $4.17 billion from North America. The deal is expected to close in the fourth quarter, Tokyo-based Ricoh said.