Bilfinger looks to US, Middle East for M&A expansion, CFO tells Boersen-Zeitung

FRANKFURT (Reuters) - German industrial services provider Bilfinger is considering growing through mergers and acquisitions and is looking at the Middle East and United States as potential places to do so, the company's finance chief told Boersen-Zeitung.

"Our fire power is several hundreds of millions of euros," Matti Jaekel was quoted as saying. "Banks are prepared to support us in potential takeovers."

Asked whether Bilfinger, which has a market valuation of 1.6 billion euros ($1.7 billion), was a potential takeover target itself, Jaekel said that there was currently no known interest from strategic bidders.

"And a takeover by financial investors has become much more difficult due to the good share price performance."

Bilfinger was subject to takeover speculation in 2020 and 2021, with French industrial services group Altrad being named as a potential buyer at the time, although no deal materialised.

($1 = 0.9229 euros)

(Reporting by Christoph Steitz; Editing by Kirsten Donovan)