Carrier in US buys Longville Group

Specialist rental company Longville Group is to be sold to Carrier Inc, the US heating and air conditioning manufacturer owned by the massive United Technologies Corp (UTC). The deal closed early in 2007 and the sale price was not been disclosed.

IRN understands that Carrier aims to retain all of Longville's specialist rental businesses in the UK, USA, Germany, France, Holland, Poland and Singapore, and use it to create a global power, pump and temperature control business.

Carrier, which had not commented on the acquisition as IRN went to press, has a turnover of $12,5 billion and although primarily a manufacturer has a chiller and spot cooler rental operations in the US called Carrier Rental Systems (CRS) that could combine well with Longville's Nu-Temp business in the US. Longville will operate within Carrier's HVAC Building & Industrial Systems business unit.

Longville's chief executive, Ray Ledger, left the company in early January and has been replaced by Richard Jones, a senior executive at Carrier UK. IRN understands that head of Nu-Temp, Tony Ward, will remain with the business.

Longville operates under several trading brands, including SLD for pumps, CRS for chiller rental, PowerRent for power and Nu-Temp in the US. It rents pumps in the UK, Holland, Poland and Singapore and temperature control equipment in the US, UK, France and Germany.

It reported a 2005/6 turnover of €77 million and has been majority owned by private equity firm Bridgepoint since September 1999. Under Bridgepoint's ownership it made seven acquisitions in the UK and US.

Carrier's owner, UTC, is a US$43 billion turnover conglomerate that owns Otis elevators, Pratt & Whitney aircraft engines, Sikorsky helicopters and other businesses.