CHICAGO (AP) – Warren Buffett’s investment company announced Tuesday it will pay $4.5 billion for 60 percent of Marmon Holdings Inc., a private company of more than 125 manufacturing and service businesses.

Berkshire Hathaway Inc., based in Omaha, Neb., said it plans to acquire the remaining 40 percent of Marmon over the next five to six years depending on future earnings of Marmon, according to a statement released Tuesday by both companies.

Marmon is owned by trusts for the benefits of the Pritzker family of Chicago, the family that developed the Hyatt Hotel chain.

The deal is expected to close in the first quarter of 2008. Before the closing, Marmon said it will make a “substantial distribution of cash and certain assets to the selling shareholders,” according to the statement.

Brothers Jay and Robert Pritzker acquired Marmon in 1953 when it was a small manufacturing operation in Ohio, according to the release. In 2002, Jay’s son Tom Pritzker took over as chairman.

“Our transaction was done just the way Jay would have liked it to be done – no consultants or studies,” Buffett said in the statement. “I am pleased that over the next five to six years, we will be partnering and working … in continuing to build Marmon.”

Billionaire investor Buffett is CEO and chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, which has more than 60 subsidiaries.

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On the Net:

Berkshire Hathaway Inc.: http://www.berkshirehathaway.com

Marmon Holdings Inc.: http://www.marmon.com/

AP-ES-12-25-07 2020EST