Grundfos purchases leading dosing pump manufacturer

To further strengthen its position in the market for dosing pumps, the Danish pump Group Grundfos has purchased the well-established and recognised German dosing pump group Alldos as of 1 January 2005.

Within the dosing area, Grundfos as well as Alldos primarily produce motor-driven pumps for dosing of chemicals for water treatment.
Grundfos has only been involved in this business area for four years, but in spite of that the Group has managed to develop and introduce some of the most advanced dosing pumps in the market with its Digital Dosing concept. The acquisition of Alldos provides Grundfos with a strong basis for further growth in the area through a wider product range with pumps, which include sensors, disinfection technology, and broader application knowledge. Furthermore, Alldos has a well-established sales network.

Group President and CEO, Jens Jørgen Madsen, Grundfos, made the following statement in connection with the purchase: ”This acquisition is a consequence of Grundfos’ increasingly active acquisition strategy where we screen the pump market systematically for relevant purchases to match our strategies. It has been decisive for us that dosing pumps are Alldos’ core business and that the company has a great amount of know-how within this market segment. That Alldos is a well-run company, a strong brand and not least that they prioritize product development has also been decisive for us. It is all in keeping with the way we work and I see great opportunities for synergies in this acquisition.”

Alldos has 36 years of experience in the dosing area, a relatively large development department, and furthermore the company has a well-established co-operation with the College of Engineering in Karlsruhe concerning their development work. Apart from product development, application knowledge is an important competitive parameter. In the light of that, the Grundfos Group has chosen to centre its main dosing pump activities around the newly acquired company.

Executive Vice President, Søren Ø. Sørensen, Grundfos, says: ”Apart from the water treatment sector, liquid dosing pumps for the food industry is an important market segment. We have only recently begun working with pumps for the food industry when we purchased another German pump company called Hilge last year, and in the long run we expect to be able to create synergies between these two areas.”

Apart from dosing pumps and systems, Alldos develops and manufactures sensors and control systems for use in connection with dosing pumps. Commenting on this, Mr Søren Ø. Sørensen says: ”Sensors and control systems constitute a new and extremely interesting area to us, with a large potential as these products form part of most dosing installations”.

The former owner of Alldos, BSc (Engineering) Wolfgang Eichler, will retire from his position as chairman of the board when Grundfos takes over. Mr Sørensen from Grundfos will take up the post.

Mr. Eichler made the following comment to the sale: ”Finding a buyer with global impact, focus on development of basic technologies and strong values has been crucial to me. In that respect, I am convinced that Grundfos is the best possible buyer. The fact that Alldos will become a competence centre for Grundfos Dosing is of course a great pleasure. It means that the knowledge that my competent staff has gathered over the years is passed on to the new owners in the best possible way, thus creating basis for continuous growth in future.”

Mr Sørensen adds, ”With this acquisition, we wish to create a competence centre for dosing pumps based at Alldos.
The acquisition further strengthens our platform for development and increases our possibilities for synergy between our dosing pumps and a wide range of our other pump products,” This is the first time Grundfos establishes a large product development centre outside Denmark.

The Alldos management continues unchanged with Ewald P. Diesslin as CEO and Daniel Brändlin as CFO and deputy to Mr Diesslin. To integrate Grundfos’ competence within the dosing area as efficiently and quickly as possible the Grundfos director of the dosing area, Jes Munk Hansen, will join Alldos’ management team. Mr Munk Hansen will also continue as Senior Vice President for Grundfos and overall responsible for the Group’s Dosing activities. This will ensure that the Grundfos Group achieves optimum utilisation of the potential synergies that this acquisition holds. Especially within the fields of sales and marketing, Alldos can benefit greatly from Grundfos’ high level of competence.

The Alldos Group has an annual turnover of approx. EUR 40 million and is thus one of the Grundfos Group’s largest acquisitions. Grundfos has great expectations to this relatively new business area, and the Group’s total turnover within the Dosing business area is expected to increase considerably in the future and thus reach EUR 100 million. Alldos has a total of 280 employees the majority of whom work in Pfinztal near Karlsruhe in Germany. The company has its administrative headquarters in Switzerland and has employees in 12 countries in Europe and elsewhere.

Grundfos has an annual turnover of more than EUR 1.5 billion and 12,000 employees. The Group has production companies in 12 countries and sales companies in 40 countries worldwide. It supplies pumps for a wide range of purposes, e.g. in the building and manufacturing industries as well as for dosage, water supply and wastewater, and furthermore it manufactures motors and electronics. The Group already has a series of activities and a total turnover of approx. EUR 300 million in Germany.