A private equity consortium led by European firms Cinven and Astorg has agreed to acquire British scientific measurement and testing company LGC Group from KKR & Co for an undisclosed sum.

LGC provides measuring and testing services to the healthcare and affiliated markets and also liaisons with government bodies.

Tests it offers include those to determine the quality of beer brewers' malt, check if milk powder contains salmonella, or find traces of drugs in hair samples.

New York-based private equity firm KKR bought LGC from Bridgepoint in 2015 for about 650 million pounds and has since helped the company grow through a string of acquisitions.

"We have been actively monitoring developments in the life sciences tools market, with a particular focus on LGC, for over five years, and have been very impressed by LGC's scientific capabilities," Francois de Mitry, managing partner at Paris-based Astorg, said in a statement on Thursday.

While Cinven has a focus on the pharmaceuticals and life sciences industry, Astorg has interests across software, healthcare, business-to-business, and technology-based industrial companies.

The Financial Times reported on Wednesday that the deal valued LGC at about 3 billion pounds ($3.88 billion), citing people familiar with the matter.

Reuters reported last month that private equity firms including Blackstone and Leonard Green were also in the running.

($1 = 0.77 pounds)

(Reporting by Pushkala Aripaka in Bengaluru; Editing by Maju Samuel) ((Pushkala.A@thomsonreuters.com; Twitter: @pushkala_a; within UK: +44 20 7542 1810, outside UK: +91 80 6749 6633;))