By CBS.MarketWatch.com

SUNNYVALE, Calif. (CBS.MW) -- Wesco Financial entered into an agreement late Friday to purchase furniture-rental company Cort Business Services in a deal valued at approximately $467 million.

Through its Wesco Holdings Midwest subsidiary, Wesco is offering to pay $28 in cash for all of Cort's outstanding shares. That represents a premium of about 64 percent over Friday's 17 1/8 closing price of Cort's stock. Wesco shares ended the day at 270.

Cort's board of directors has unanimously approved the deal and recommended that shareholders tender their shares. The offer will begin by Jan. 24, according to Wesco, and is expected to be completed in late February.

Wesco is a holding company primarily engaged in the property- and casualty-insurance businesses and the steel service center business. It is 80 percent owned by Berkshire Hathaway. According to Hoover's Online, a Citigroup unit owns more than 40 percent of Cort.

Warren Buffett, Berkshire Hathaway's chairman, said that "Cort is the kind of 'best in class' business that ... I like to add to the Berkshire group of companies."