Alfa Laval – a world leader in heat transfer, centrifugal separation and fluid handling – has signed an umbrella agreement with the LU-VE Group to sell parts of its air heat exchanger business, related to commercial/industrial air heat exchangers, currently placed in the Greenhouse division.

The closing of the agreement is expected during first half of 2019.

The product group commercial/industrial air heat exchangers represent the major part of today’s Greenhouse. It was moved there in 2016, along with a few other selected product groups, to give it the best possible conditions to improve its performance. The strategy has proven to be successful and the air heat exchanger business reported revenues of more than SEK 1 billion during the last twelve months.

“This business has made big improvements the last two years both in terms of growth and profitability,” said Tom Erixon, President and CEO of the Alfa Laval Group. “However, we concluded it would have even better opportunities to continue developing under the ownership of the LU-VE Group.”

The President of LU-VE, Iginio Liberali, said, “Alfa Laval’s commercial/industrial air heat exchangers will fit perfectly into the strategic design of growth and qualification of the LU-VE Group. With the acquisition, the Group will be among the three largest global operators in the sector. It will reinforce our capability to offer services and components of high quality and reliability.”

The agreement to divest the commercial/industrial air heat exchanger business to LU?VE Group will affect about 400 employees, mainly based at the production sites in Italy, Finland and India, and the purpose is to transfer the employees to the LU-VE Group as per closing date of the transaction.  

Alfa Laval will continue to supply air heat exchangers (such as Alfa Laval ACE, Alfa Laval Niagara and Alfa Laval OLMI) for heavy process industry applications and other types of heat exchangers (such as brazed heat exchangers) for the HVAC and refrigeration industry.