Balk-Bad Homburg v. d. H. - Over the past few years, rapid growth has turned Paques into an important player in the international market of industrial wastewater treatment. This market is going through an important change. Today’s customers increasingly demand complete solutions, turnkey project delivery and sometimes even including “own and operate” contracts. Following this trend implies an important extension of the business model of Paques: from technology development, where Paques has its roots, to contracting.
The question of how to respond to this market development has been on the agenda of the management board, supervisory board and the Pâques family and German SKion Water as the two shareholders for some years.
All this has led to the decision of the Pâques family to sell its entire 80% interest to the current minority shareholder SKion Water. When SKion Water invested into Paques at the end of 2011, Paques was the first water sector investment of SKion Water. Today, SKion Water has a group turnover of roughly 700 million Euros and operations across the world. It provides fresh water and wastewater treatment solutions to both municipal and industrial customers. The largest companies within SKion Water are Ovivo, EnviroChemie Group and ELIQUO WATER GROUP. With the acquisition of Paques, SKion Water can leverage the Paques’ technologies in offerings of its group companies and thus increase the market potential for Paques. SKion Water is 100% owned by German entrepreneur Susanne Klatten.
Dr. Reinhard Hübner, CEO of SKion Water: “Paques has been a starting point of our journey in the water sector. Over the years, Paques developed several innovative technologies and today with its global footprint delivers high-end treatment plants to its customers across the world. Becoming part of SKion Water will allow Paques to leverage the customer access and broader technology portfolio of the other companies in our group. We thank the Pâques family for their trust in us continuing to develop the company further and welcome the Paques team to SKion Water.”
Stephan Bocken, CEO of Paques Holding: “ The vision of the Pâques family instilled a culture in Paques that made it the undisputed technology leader in its wastewater field for decades – we will continue in this tradition, all while taking advantage of SKion Water’s product range. Furthermore, SKion Water companies will be able to take advantage of Paques’ strong presence in Latin America, India and Asia.”
Joost Pâques, Pâques family: “Paques has grown tremendously over the past few years. We are proud of what has been achieved by everybody who contributed to this success. Since innovative entrepreneurship is in our genes, the Pâques family will continue with translating innovative biotechnological knowledge into large scale applications.”
Following the transfer of Paques’ ownership to SKion Water, the company will continue its activities under the Paques brand, the location in Balk will continue to exist in full and the current management team and supervisory board will remain in place. Paques will remain an independent company within SKion Water, just like Ovivo, EnviroChemie and ELIQUO. The Pâques family will focus on developing new technologies in the field of biomaterials and retain its representation on the Supervisory Board as well as continue to liaise the Company with the Watercampus and the Dutch water sector.
Florin Finance acted as advisor to the selling shareholder, the Pâques family.
About SKion Water
SKion Water GmbH – through its operational subsidiaries Ovivo, EnviroChemie, ELIQUO WATER GROUP, Paques, Ecopreneur, ADASA and Matten – is a technology and solution provider, as well as a plant manufacturer, in both municipal and industrial water and wastewater technology. SKion Water also invests in innovative water technology companies if the respective technology is a fit with the existing portfolio. SKion Water is a subsidiary of SKion GmbH, the investment company of German entrepreneur Mrs. Susanne Klatten.
www.skionwater.com
About Paques
Paques is one of the world’s leading companies in the field of development and construction of cost-effective purification systems for (waste)water and gases, based on innovative biotechnology. With over 2400 reference installations worldwide, Paques has helped companies and municipals to contribute to one of the major challenges of today: to reduce their water and carbon footprints and reclaim valuable resources. Besides the headquarters in The Netherlands, Paques has subsidiaries and/or production locations in China, Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, United States of America, India, Malaysia and Thailand.
www.paques.nl
More information please contact:
A. Yntema
A.Yntema@Paques.nl
+31 61 102 87 987