Advent to buy Maxar Technologies for about $4 billion – WSJ

(Reuters) – Advent International has agreed to buy Maxar Technologies Inc in a deal that values the satellite owner and operator at about $4 billion, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday, citing executives at the private-equity firm.

Shares of Maxar more than doubled in premarket trading on Friday.

Advent will pay $53 a share for Maxar, the WSJ report said, adding that including debt, the transaction is worth $6.4 billion, making it one of the bigger buyouts to be announced during the past few months.

The debt for the transaction will be supplied by a group of non-bank lenders, according to the report.

Maxar and Advent did not immediately respond to Reuters request for comment.

Westminster, Colorado-based Maxar, which has a market cap of $1.72 billion, is a satellite imaging company that observes changes on Earth and analyses data. Images of the battlefield in Ukraine are often provided by Maxar.

(Reporting by Tiyashi Datta in Bengaluru; Editing by Sherry Jacob-Phillips)