Kurita continues buying spree with Avista

Kurita Industries of Japan has agreed to acquire Avista Technologies, including its UK arm, in a $81.8 million deal. This continues a recent surge of acquisitions in the water treatment field that began with U.S. Water Services. The company said that this will expand its product range and enable it to improve the offer through shared technology and know-how.

Avista specialises in chemical used with reverse osmosis membranes plus related cleaning services, which it sells to industries including mining, chemicals, oil, food and beverages in the US and the Europe, Middle East and Africa region. The company was founded in California in 1999 and had sales of just over $23 million in 2018. Its UK arm followed in 2001 and had sales of £4.45 million last year.

The much larger, $270 million acquisition of Minnesota-based U.S. Water Services from Allete Enterprises had been completed on 26 March. This is expected to increase Kurita’s US sales fourfold. U.S. Water had sales of $172 million  last year in multiple industries, employing about 500 people. Kurita Group aims to expand its businesses globally by establishing platforms in four regions of Japan, Asia, Europe and the Americas.

Kurita has also recently raised its stake in Apana of Washington DC, in which it first invested in December 2018, to over 40%. Apana supplies water management systems based on Internet of Things technologies, notably the LoRa wireless communication technology for real-time monitoring of water consumption. Since then, Apana has acquired technical standards conformity for its equipment in Japan and has been showcasing its capabilities in domestic water monitoring. Kurita will be working to expand this business in the US and Japan, while seeking partners to promote it elsewhere.

Finally, the company has also acquired 25% of Pentagon Technologies Group, a US precision tool cleaning business. This deal was announced in October 2018 and completed on 1 April 2019.