Altus Capital Partners Closes Sale of Aqua-Chem

Benesch advised Altus Capital Partners, a private equity investment firm focused on niche middle market manufacturing companies in the U.S., in the closing of the sale of Aqua-Chem, a global provider of high quality water purification and heat transfer solutions to the military, pharmaceutical, energy, military and bottled water industries was sold to Crimson Investment.

Aqua-Chem was acquired by Altus and Aqua-Chem’s management in March 2006 from The Cleaver-Brooks Company. Since then, Aqua-Chem has expanded into other industrial markets that require high quality water solutions. As part of this market expansion, Aqua-Chem has launched more than a dozen new products, including increasingly large vapor compression systems, reverse-osmosis water purifiers, pretreatment and sanitary process distribution systems, waste heat plate type evaporators, vacuum vapor compression units and titanium and copper-nickel heat exchangers. 

Altus has exited Aqua-Chem Inc. after eight and a half years, making approximately 10 times its investment, including dividends.  Altus Capital on Monday announced the sale of Aqua-Chem in a secondary deal with Crimson Investment.  Altus Capital put in $4.25 million of equity in Aqua-Chem in 2006, said Managing Partner Russell Greenberg. The portfolio company issued dividends to shareholders in 2010, 2012 and 2013. Greenberg said Aqua-Chem attracted unsolicited interest from potential buyers in the last couple of years. Altus hired BB&T Capital Markets last October and the marketing process began in March, said Greenberg, adding that Aqua-Chem drew interest from both strategic players and financial sponsors. Under Altus Capital’s ownership, Aqua-Chem made three acquisitions. It bought the product lines of Matrix Utilities Inc. in 2008 and acquired Specific Equipment Co. in 2010 and Enviro-Solutions LLC in 2011.

Benesch was the legal adviser and the team was led by Joe Tegreene.

About Benesch

With offices in Cleveland, Columbus, Indianapolis, Philadelphia, Shanghai, White Plains and Wilmington, Benesch’s practice and industry groups include Business Reorganization, the China Group, Compensation & Benefits, Construction, Commercial Finance & Banking, Corporate & Securities, Litigation, Energy, Health Care, Intellectual Property, Labor & Employment, Polymer Industry, Private Equity, Public Finance, Public Law, Real Estate & Environmental, Tax, Transportation & Logistics, and Estate Planning & Probate. Benesch is dedicated to superior client service through its first in service program and is focused on growth both organically and geographically in order to continuously improve its ability to serve its clients. For more information, visit www.beneschlaw.com.

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