AquaVenture's patient backers set to cash out in style

摘要

The most frequently asked question in the immediate aftermath of Cul-ligan's December announcement that it would take AquaVenture Holdings private for $1.1 billion was whether the group's desalination business would be carved out and sold separately. The legacy Seven Seas Water segment derives the bulk of its sales from long-term bulk water supply contracts in the Caribbean, and accounted for around 46% of AquaVenture's 2018 revenue total of $145.6 million. Since merging with the Quench point-of-use business in 2014, its business model and end market exposure have remained sufficiently differentiated so as to make it easy to carve it out as a separate entity, although the group's strategy since then has been to use the cashflows from the desal business to fund Quench's acquisitive growth.