Beverly Hills-based private equity firm Platinum Equity has completed its purchase of Lonza’s water care business for $630 million, the latest in a spate of acquisitions for the firm.
The Alpharetta, Ga.-based Lonza, a unit of Switzerland-based Lonza Group Ltd., provides water treatment, industrial and municipal water care, and pool treatment, operating six production facilities around the world.
Following the transfer of ownership, the unit will operate as a stand-alone company and will announce a new “corporate identity,” the companies said. No changes are expected to Lonza’s underlying consumer product brands.
Platinum Equity has been on a roll in recent months. Last year, the firm completed the acquisition of Jostens Inc. from Newell Brands Inc. in a transaction valued at roughly $1.3 billion. It also acquired Lifescan Inc. from Johnson & Johnson for $2.1 billion, and completed corporate carve outs from Pitney Bowes Inc., GenOn Energy Inc., Ball Corp. and Wyndham Worldwide Corp., among several other investments.
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K1 holds majority position
El Segundo-based K1 Investment Management is investing $1 billion in recently merged software companies Certify Inc. and Chrome River Technologies Inc., giving the private equity firm a majority stake.
Portland, Maine-based Certify and the Mid-Wilshire-based Chrome River develop software to monitor, manage and analyze corporate spending.
Hasan Askari, a managing partner with K1, said the merger positions the two firms to compete against expense management firm SAP Concur, a Bellevue, Wash.-based unit of Concur Technologies Inc. “Our goal is to take them down,” Askari said in an interview.
Existing shareholders, including the founders of the two companies as well as Bain Capital Ventures, a Boston-based private investment firm, will retain minority interests.
Certify and Chrome River, which employ roughly 700 to 800, are forecast to generate as much as $150 million to $200 million in annualized revenue later this year, Askari said. Combined, they have more than 11,000 global customers, he added.
Market intelligence firm International Data Corp. estimates that sales of cloud-expense management software in the United States will grow to $2.7 billion by 2022, according to senior research analyst Kevin Permenter.
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LinQuest gets new CEO
LinQuest Corp., a Ladera Heights-based developer of technology for space systems, has named Timothy Dills as its new chief executive.
LinQuest works closely with the Department of Defense and the intelligence community, specializing in satellite communications engineering, cyberoperations, and space flight and ground software.
LinQuest was acquired last year by the private equity firms Madison Dearborn Partners, of Chicago, and CoVant Management Inc., of McLean, Va.
Dills is a veteran in the technology industry. He is joining LinQuest from Scitor Corp., a Virginia-based unit of Scitor Holdings Inc. that provided engineering, cyber and security services to clients primarily in the intelligence community before it was purchased by Science Applications International Corp. in 2015.
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Vance Street Capital buys Measurand
Sawtelle-based private equity firm Vance Street Capital purchased Measurand Group, a Canadian designer and maker of specialized instruments used in mining and bridge building.
This is Vance’s second acquisition in the niche of so-called geotechnical instrumentation. The Measurand business complements Vance’s 2017 purchase of RST Instruments.
Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
Fredericton, New Brunswick-based Measurand manufactures geotechnical sensor instruments used to monitor the deformation of soil and structures. Its flagship products are used in mines, ponds, bridges, tunnels, dams and levees.
Vance Street Capital’s portfolio includes companies in the aerospace, defense, industrial and medical sectors.
Have a deal tip? Pat Maio can be reached at [email protected] or (323) 556-8329.
