Chart Industries to acquire Howden from KPS Capital Partners for $4.4bn

Chart Industries, an American plant engineering company, has agreed to acquire Howden, a UK-based application engineering and manufacturing company, from affiliates of KPS Capital Partners for $4.4 billion.

Howden provides products and services pertaining to mission critical air and gas handling. It manufactures highly engineered fans, steam turbines, rotary heat exchangers, compressors, and other air and gas handling products, solutions, and services.

The company has 18 manufacturing sites and 41 service center points across the globe.

Chart Industries acquisition of Howden is expected to increase the former’s equipment portfolio and process technology offering, increasing scale and aftermarket capabilities as well as bringing synergies.

Chart Industries to acquire Howden, a provider of mission critical air and gas handling products and services. Photo courtesy of Howden Group.

The American plant engineering company anticipates cost synergies of around $175 million and $150 million in revenue synergies in the first 12 months of the successful transaction.

Post-closing, the combined company will scale to provide more complete solutions across Chart Industries’ Nexus of Clean – clean power, clean food, clean water, and clean industrials.

Jill Evanko — Chart Industries CEO and President said: “The combination of Chart and Howden furthers our global leadership position in highly engineered process technologies and products serving the Nexus of Clean – clean power, clean water, clean food and clean industrials.

“The offerings of Chart and Howden are highly complementary, bringing multiple cost synergies, commercial synergies and efficiencies in the first year, along with significant aftermarket, service and repair exposure, which lifts the margin profile of the combined business, adds resiliency and broadens our end markets.”

Chart Industries acquisition of Howden will be financed by the former through a combination of cash and shares of a newly set up class of preferred stock.

The firms are said to have a combined backlog of around $3.7 billion as of 30 September 2022.

Expected to close in H1 2023, Chart Industries acquisition of Howden is subject to some regulatory approvals and other customary conditions.