Frigel Firenze SpA, a leading manufacturer of industrial cooling systems, has entered into a share purchase agreement for the acquisition of 100 percent of fellow Italian company and competitor Padua-based Green Box srl.
The acquisition of Green Box will allow Frigel (Booth W193) to further strengthen its presence in the international market, creating a group with sales of more than 70 million euros ($83.4 million) and distribution offices and manufacturing sites in Italy, the United States, Germany, Brazil, India and Thailand.
The deal was described in a statement from Deloitte Financial Advisory, which worked with Frigel throughout the process, as an "interesting case of sector aggregation between Italian family businesses" that will generate "important industrial synergies."
Franco Spiandorello and Caterina Spiandorello, respectively managing director and general manager of Green Box, will join the Frigel management team.
Frigel North America Inc. is exhibiting at NPE2018.
Green Box, founded in 1991, specializes in products for machines and plants to control water temperatures and fluids used in industrial processes. The company's custom-built systems are used in sectors varying from plastics processing, biogas and energy production to die-casting and the food sector.
The company has since gained a strong reputation in the market for environmental awareness. While it entered the market with a modular series of water chillers, it soon also introduced a series of temperature controllers plus an innovative cooling system providing high energy and water savings: the fluid cooler, operating in closed loop and with a self-draining circuit, making the use of glycol during cold weather, unnecessary.
Fluid coolers, called free-coolers, are basically air and water heat exchangers, which cool water by using ambient air. Axial fans circulate the air through the coils.
Green Box later developed a high-efficiency adiabatic cooling system to extend the working range of the free coolers even at ambient temperatures higher than the required water temperature. These come equipped with a so called SSS (super spray system) option, that uses nebulizers, which increase the cooling effect and hence the efficiency. The modular design enables the system to be expanded to include additional free coolers as needed in the future.
Frigel, itself active in the industrial cooling market for more than 60 years, is looking forward to the synergies generated by the acquisition.
"We are pleased that Green Box is now part of our group. There is a strong technical and innovative potential in Green Box, which, thanks to the strong presence of the Frigel Group in international markets, will now be able to find its natural outlet," said Frigel CEO Duccio Dorin.
