A group led by Clayton Dubilier & Rice (CD&R) agreed to purchase French engineering group Spie in a deal valuing it at 2.1 billion euros ($3 billion), in the biggest French leveraged takeover since the 2008 financial crisis. French private equity group PAI Partners, which said in March it was considering a possible sale of the electrical and mechanical engineering firm, confirmed a deal to sell it to a group also including a unit of French insurer AXA (AXAF.PA) and Canada's Caisse des Depots du Quebec. More than half the deal's value, or 1.3 billion euros, was financed by debt, sources said. CD&R provided about 400 million euros of equity. The deal is the biggest of a recent string of private equity investments in France and is the latest in a series of European leveraged buyouts (LBOs) bolstered by the recovery of financing markets after the 2008 financial crisis.
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