NEW YORK – Billionaire investor Carl Icahn offered Friday to buy Clorox Co., the maker of the namesake bleach, for about $10.2 billion in a move designed to draw out other potential bidders.

Icahn, the company’s largest investor with a 9.4 percent stake, offered to pay $76.50 a share, 12 percent more than the Oakland, Calif.-based company’s closing price Thursday, according to a filing Friday. Including debt, the transaction values Clorox at about $12.6 billion, Icahn said.

In a letter to Chief Executive Officer Donald Knauss, Icahn urged Clorox to seek offers from “strategic buyers” including Procter & Gamble Co., Kimberly-Clark Corp., Henkel AG and Colgate-Palmolive Co. These potential bidders could market Clorox’s brands “more aggressively” overseas, Icahn said.

“Clorox represents a scarce asset in an industry landscape where we fail to see any comparable alternatives,” Icahn said in the letter.

Icahn’s offer is the biggest for a household products and wares company in the United States in the past five years. The bid values Clorox at about 11.2 times earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Icahn, 75, also named Unilever, the maker of Dove Soap, and Reckitt Benckiser Group PLC, the maker of Lysol cleaners, as potential buyers. The investor said a $100 million payment will be made to reimburse Clorox if it accepts the offer and a deal doesn’t go through. He said he plans to raise $7.8 billion in debt financing for the takeover, and said Jefferies & Co. is “highly confident” in its ability to raise the financing, according to the filing.

Clorox said it will review the proposal, according to a statement Friday. In May, Clorox cut the top end of its annual profit forecast and predicted 2012 earnings that fell short of analysts’ projections.