Sun Capital Partners, Inc. has announced that one of its affiliates has agreed to acquire Aclara Technologies LLC from ESCO Technologies Inc. (NYSE: ESE). Terms of the deal have not been disclosed. The north American Advanced Meter Infrastructure solutions provider will become an independent business.
Aclara is a vendor of Advanced Meter Infrastructure (AMI) solutions, predominantly deployed by U.S. electric, gas and water utilities. AMI includes the two-way communications device within a meter, as well as the supporting network infrastructure for ‘smart’ meters that allow utilities to remotely extract real-time consumption data and interact with their customers. By upgrading to AMI, utilities can at a minimum lower their costs by eliminating the need for manual readings, as well as improve the efficiency of their networks.
Additionally, Aclara’s software services solution is said to enable a wide variety of customer programmes through print and electronic communications and a rich online and mobile customer experience. These comprehensive customer engagement technologies allow customers to better understand their energy needs in real time, fuelling greater cost-efficiency and conservation.
Headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri, Aclara serves more than 600 utility customers, with in excess of 21 million endpoints deployed. The company is said to be the leading power line carrier vendor in the electric AMI market; to rank first in cumulative AMI units sold to fixed network gas utilities, including PG&E and SoCalGas; and to manage some of the largest water AMI installations in North America, including New York City, Washington, D.C., San Francisco, Boston Water & Sewer and Toronto, Canada.
“Aclara is a strong organisation that is well suited to capitalise on future opportunities as a standalone business,” said Marc Leder, co-chief executive officer at Sun Capital. “We look forward to working with management, as our deep experience in transitioning successful corporate subsidiaries into thriving independent enterprises will enable Aclara to build on its leading market position.”
Sun Capital Partners, Inc. is a private equity investor, combining the financial skills and resources of a traditional private equity firm with the expertise of an operating team. The firm focuses on market-leading companies that it believes can benefit from its in-house professionals, resources, and expertise to materially improve operating performance. Sun Capital affiliates have invested in more than 335 companies worldwide with combined sales in excess of US$45 billion since its inception in 1995. Sun Capital has offices in Boca Raton, Los Angeles and New York, and affiliates in London, Frankfurt, Paris, Luxembourg, Shanghai and Shenzhen.
