Pentair, Inc. and GE Water & Process Technologies announced today that they are engaged in discussions to establish a joint venture to combine their respective global water softener and residential water filtration businesses.Under the current framework in discussion, Pentair would own approximately 80 per cent of the joint venture interests, and GE Water & Process Technologies would own approximately 20 per cent. The combined businesses had 2007 net sales of approximately $450 million. It is not currently contemplated that significant cash contributions would be required from either party to form the joint venture.
The parties to the discussion believe this joint venture creates significant sales growth opportunities and other operating synergies, and would accelerate the global development of innovative technologies to serve the residential water filtration and treatment market.
In keeping with Pentair’s established corporate policy, the company will not comment further upon the status of these discussions until they are concluded.
