Now Part of Emerson Network Power; Broadens Global Power Capability
St. Louis, September 3, 2010 – Emerson (NYSE: EMR) today announced it completed its acquisition of Chloride Group PLC, which now joins strong global product brands within Emerson Network Power. This acquisition helps drive Emerson’s long-term global growth strategy for uninterruptible power supply (UPS) and integrated data center solutions. As previously announced, the purchase price was approximately $1.5 billion.
Chloride’s leading UPS technology, strong European presence and leading service and custom power solutions across a wide range of applications complements Emerson Network Power’s other leading brands and businesses, including Liebert, Avocent, Energy Systems, Knürr, ASCO and Aperture. The addition of Chloride strengthens Emerson’s ability to enable Business-Critical Continuity™ and deliver complete IT infrastructure power solutions. Chloride further adds strength to Emerson’s global position with its industrial UPS technology and customer base.
“We’re excited today about the opportunities and options now open to our customers with the addition of the Chloride business,” said Ed Feeney, Emerson executive vice president and business leader of Emerson Network Power. “Chloride is a great company, with a leading European position and strong industrial sector relationships. This complements everything we do.”
Rapid growth in data traffic and a critical business need for high availability is driving the need for power continuity solutions. Faced with power grid supply variability, customers rely on Emerson and Chloride technology to maintain clean, efficient power levels and continuity when being out of power or offline is not an option.
“As managing a data center’s IT and physical infrastructure becomes more complex and critical, customers today must have at their disposal complete, integrated power solutions to enable true Data Center Infrastructure Management (DCIM) and gain increased availability and energy efficiency,” Feeney said.
Peter Loconto, president of Network Power’s Energy Systems business, has been named to lead the new Emerson Network Power European organization. Reporting to Loconto will be the Emerson Network Power divisions in Europe, as well as the newly acquired Chloride business, which will be led by Tim Cobbold, currently Chloride’s chief executive.
“Service has been an essential strength of Chloride and we can assure customers that they will continue to get the same great quality and high levels of support and service that they received from Chloride,” Loconto said.
In recent years, Emerson has made a number of strategic acquisitions to strengthen and broaden product and service capabilities within Europe and around the world for Emerson’s Network Power Systems business. Emerson has long had a strong base in Europe for its Liebert brand products and services for uninterruptible power supply (UPS) and precision cooling technology.
Late in 2009, Emerson acquired Avocent Corporation, which added leading IT infrastructure management and device operating performance technology to further strengthen Emerson Network Power’s DCIM capabilities. Data Center Infrastructure Management is a holistic approach to monitoring and managing the data center infrastructure layer (power, cooling and room environment), the IT infrastructure layer (compute, storage and communications) and the gap between the two layers.
“Emerson is positioning itself in a significant way to support communications and computing infrastructure needs. These are key, faster-growing markets that provide long-term future growth opportunities,” Feeney said.
Tim Cobbold added: “We’re excited about becoming a part of Emerson’s strong global business and we look forward as part of Emerson to meeting together the challenges and opportunities in our dynamic markets.”
Chloride employs over 2,500 people across 23 countries, including more than 400 employees in the UK. The business has assembly and test facilities in Italy, France, U.S. and India in addition to R&D facilities in India, Germany and Italy and a manufacturing joint venture in China.
Emerson already has a strong engineering, R&D, manufacturing and sales presence in Europe, with about $4.3 billion sales, about 24,000 employees and approximately 70 manufacturing locations in the region. In 2009, Emerson Network Power global sales were $5.5 billion, and its sales in Europe in 2009 were about $900 million, with about 3,200 employees, more than 300 E&D engineers and 10 manufacturing locations in the region.
Emerson will host a brief presentation to discuss this transaction and other acquisition and divestiture activity at 1:30 p.m. Central Time (2:30 p.m. Eastern Time) on Thursday, Sept. 9. A live webcast of the presentation will be available in the Investor Relations area of Emerson’s Web site at www.Emerson.com/financial at the time of the event, and an archive replay will be available for approximately one week.
About Emerson Network Power
Emerson Network Power, a business of Emerson (NYSE:EMR), is the global leader in enabling Business-Critical Continuity™ from grid to chip for telecommunication networks, data centers, health care and industrial facilities. Emerson Network Power provides innovative solutions and expertise in areas including AC and DC power and precision cooling systems, embedded computing and power, integrated racks and enclosures, power switching and controls, infrastructure management, and connectivity. All solutions are supported globally by local Emerson Network Power service technicians. Learn more about Emerson Network Power products and services at www.EmersonNetworkPower.com.
About Emerson
Emerson, based in St. Louis, Missouri, USA, is a global leader in bringing technology and engineering together to provide innovative solutions for customers in industrial, commercial, and consumer markets through its network power, process management, industrial automation, climate technologies, and appliance and tools businesses. Sales in fiscal 2009 were $20.9 billion. For more information, visit www.Emerson.com.
