Is former Honeywell CEO acquiring Vertiv for $5 billion?

According to reports, David Cote’s GS Acquisition Holdings Corp backed by Goldman Sachs is acquiring Vertiv. The former CEO of Honeywell International could spend more than $5 billion on the company, including debt. But there is no guarantee that the deal will go through, and Vertiv is believed to have received interest from other potential bidders too.

 

Though Cote leads the company, GS Acquisition has several other high-profile directors, including former PepsiCo CEO Steven Reinemund, former Boeing CEO James Albaugh, and the co-head of Goldman Sachs’ Investment Partners platform, Raanan A. Agus.

 

GS Acquisition’s interest in Vertiv comes after reports last year that the critical infrastructure company was exploring a sale.

 

Private equity firm Platinum Equity acquired Emerson’s Network Power division for $4 billion in cash in 2016, rebranding the business as Vertiv. After acquiring the business, Platinum Equity sold Vertiv’s automatic transfer switch business ASCO to Schneider Electric for $1.25bn in 2017. The next year it acquired PDU maker Geist, thermal management company Energy Labs, and the genset service and maintenance unit of UK-based MEMS Power Generation.

 

The private equity company then began a series of layoffs, primarily at its Columbus, Ohio manufacturing facility – which saw staff numbers drop nearly 50 percent between 2018 and 2019. The facility is currently undergoing phased layoffs between October 14, 2019 and April, 2020.