FYI
Siemens sells off W&T. Underground Solutions (UGSI), a California-based supplier of fusible PVC piping, has struck a deal to acquire Siemens’ Vineland, New Jersey-based Wallace & Tiernan® ChemFeed business. The product lines include Wallace & Tiernan’s (W&T) brand liquid and dry chemical feed systems, chemical metering pumps and process controllers, and Stranco® Polyblend® dry and liquid polymer blending systems. W&T’s disinfection product line was not a part of the acquisition, and had been moved to Colorado Springs earlier this year.Joe Millen, the former Siemens executive vice-president who ran W&T after its mid-1990s acquisition by USFilter, will end his retirement to run the company for UGSI.
Andy Seidel, UGSI’s president and CEO (and a former CEO of USFilter) told WDR, “Siemens did not have detailed discussions with us regarding their motivations for selling the ChemFeed assets, but one would have to assume that a portfolio review revealed that the business did not have the earnings or growth prospects that Siemens desires. Once they decided that the business did not fit, they moved swiftly to structure and consummate a deal. We’re happy to have been selected as the buyer and we think that we can move forward as a partner with Siemens as we will continue to share many of the same sales channels in the municipal markets.”
Seidel said that the business will remain in Vineland.
Meanwhile, Siemens has not announced the status of the planned divestiture of its General Filter and Microfloc brand water treatment products. However, Siemens is hosting a late-August meeting for its independent sales representatives in Las Vegas, and some of the reps have already been placing bets that a sale is likely to be announced at the meeting.
