CLEARWATER, Fla. — Kemco Systems, a provider of water and energy solutions to the commercial laundry industry, based here, reports that it has been acquired by CECO Environmental Corp. headquartered in Dallas.
CECO is an environmentally focused, diversified industrial company whose solutions protect people, the environment and industrial equipment.
“I am excited to welcome the Kemco team to CECO and confident that the combination will open new growth opportunities across attractive industrial water markets,” says Todd Gleason, CEO of CECO Environmental.
“The acquisition of Kemco is another important and strategic step to build upon our already strong and diversified industrial water capabilities, which we have been building with tremendous organic growth execution and the acquisitions of Compass Water, Index Water, DS21 and General Rubber.”
The addition of Kemco to CECO’s Industrial Water group advances CECO’s capability to offer customers around the world a turnkey performance-enhancing engineered solution for water and wastewater treatment in a wide range of high-performance applications while expanding the CECO offerings to Kemco customers.
“Kemco has a tremendous reputation with its strong, blue-chip customer base and an installed base of more than 7,000 systems,” Gleason says. “When combined with our focused investment programs, we expect to add additional market-leading solutions and capabilities to further solve critical customer problems while delivering sustainable growth.”
Kemco, founded in 1969, marks the third acquisition for CECO during 2023 and a continuation of CECO’s steady execution of its programmatic mergers and acquisitions (M&A) strategy.
The company generated full-year 2022 revenues of approximately $22 million and advances CECO’s stated goals of owning differentiated engineered solutions businesses with niche leadership positions and more short-cycle and aftermarket business.
Gleason adds, “While this acquisition helps expand our North American presence in the water and wastewater treatment market, CECO also has the opportunity to introduce these water recycling and energy conservation solutions globally as a new offering, especially in regions we already serve where companies are seeking ways to reduce water usage, recycle their wastewater streams, and conserve energy.”
Kemco’s leadership team will remain to drive the business and work across CECO’s other industrial water businesses to maximize solution selling and services.
“We are excited to join a company that is so well aligned with our mission of helping customers solve their water and energy challenges, and we expect to enhance our value delivery to customers seeking to reduce their environmental footprint while improving their profitability,” says Tom Vanden Heuvel, vice president and general manager of Kemco Systems.
“Working with a group that is placing a greater emphasis on closing the water loop was an important element of our decision-making process.
“With CECO, we believe our customers will feel the difference that a bigger team with global reach and a broader technology base has to offer.”
Janney Montgomery Scott LLC and McDermott, Will & Emery, LLP served as advisors to Kemco for this transaction, the terms of which were not disclosed.
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