29 April 2013
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Swegon to buy Walter Meier's German ac subsidiary
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GERMANY: Following its withdrawal from France and the UK, Walter Meier is now to sell its German wholesale air conditioning business to Swedish company Swegon, its main supplier.
Walter Meier (Klima Deutschland) GmbH has its headquarters in Munich and was founded in 1930. It has been part of Walter Meier Group since 1991. The company employs 111 staff and reported a turnover of approximately EUR37m in 2012.
'We believe that Swegon is the perfect owner for Klima Deutschland and that the business will develop even better in the future than it has to date thanks to a closer interrelationship between manufacturing and distribution,' said CEO Silvan Meier.
'This is a very important acquisition for us', commented Swegon CEO, Hannu Saastamoinen. 'We have a very good relationship with Walter Meier Klima today as they are our largest independent distributor in the chiller segment. They fit very well in to our expansion strategy in the cooling business and we are now looking forward to develop our cooperation further and continue to grow in Germany which is one of our prioritized markets.'
The humidification business of Walter Meier in Germany had already been split off to the newly established Condair GmbH, under the leadership of Christian Bremer, at the end of 2012. With this latest move, Walter Meier has been able to successfully conclude its long-term Group strategy of focusing its wholesale air conditioning business on Switzerland and concentrating on humidification and evaporative cooling in the global markets.
Walter Meier's UK business - Walter Meier (Climate UK) Ltd - was sold to Italian air conditioning and heat pump manufacturer Climaveneta in 2011.