General Electric Co. said that its healthcare unit is planning to acquire diagnostics Company Clarient Inc. in order to expand its business into cancer diagnostic and therapy selection tools.

GE will initiate a cash tender offer of $5 a share for the common stock of Clarient and $20 for every preferred share. The offer for the common share is a 34% premium over earlier closing price of Clarient.

As per Reuters data, the sales of Clarient were USD 92 million in the year 2009. Prior to the announcement, the shares of Clarient closed at USD 3.74 on the Nasdaq trading on Thursday. On Friday, in the premarket trading, the shares hit USD 5.04.

The financial advice regarding the transaction for Clarient was provided by Goldman, Sachs and Co., whereas JP Morgan advised GE Healthcare. The deal is slated to close in late 2010 or in the early period of the next year.

Safeguard Scientifics Inc., which has 26% shares of Clarient, said that it will receive USD 145 million from the deal.

It is said that the acquisition of the Clarient is one of the recent deals in multinational industrial Companies.

Meanwhile, the officials of the GE refused to provide information about how much will be the cost of shares that will be purchased.