BRUSSELS, Dec 16 (Reuters) - The European Commission gave its permission on Monday for U.S. private equity firm Carlyle Group to buy German car parts supplier Edscha in a leveraged buy-out.
"There is no horizontal overlap between the parties," the Commission said in a statement.
EdCar Beteiligungs GmbH, a vehicle set up by Carlyle Group, agreed to buy a 70.5 percent stake in the firm from Edscha's four main shareholders for 26 euros per share, Edscha said at the time the deal was announced.
Other shareholders would receive an offer of 26.50 euros per share in the first two weeks of December, a seven percent premium over the stock's closing price on the day the deal was announced.
Carlyle will pay about 245 million euros to Edscha shareholders according to Reuters calculations, in addition to assuming its net debt of around 235 million euros.
Edscha specialises in car door hinges and convertible roof systems, and Carlyle has said the business strategy will continue under the new owners.
It also said there were no plans to merge Edscha with Carlyle's other industrial holdings, which include Austrian specialist machinery maker Andritz and German car parts maker Beru AG .
Four management board members of Edscha, which employs around 6,000 people and expects sales of around 950 million euros in its current business year, will hold 23 percent of EdCar and so hold an indirect stake in Edscha.
The buy-out is conditional on EdCar securing at least 75 percent of Edscha's shares.