Mitsubishi’s growth strategy in light of recent acquisitions
Turboden ORC unit (source: Turboden)
Alexander Richter
18 Dec 2012
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries pushes forward with continued growth and business expansion through acquisition of Pratt & Whitney Power Systems, which includes Italian Turboden, creating a much stronger player and increases market competition.
ThinkGeoEnergy reported last week about Mitsubishi Heavy Industry’s (MHI) acquisition of the turbine business of U.S. based Pratt & Whitney Power Systems. Earlier this year, Mitsubishi also announced the foundation of a joint thermal business with Hitachi. So there is quite some movement.
Now new details emerge as part of a press release by MHI on the acquisition of Pratt & Whitney Power Systems. Both companies signed the deal last week that sees MHI acquire the small and medium-size gas turbine business unit of Pratt & Whitney Power Systems from United Technologies Corp.
As part of the deal, Italian manufacturer of ORC turbines will become an affiliate of MHI. With the acquisition the company will diversify its power generation product portfolio. This probably means diversifying into the smaller scale unit business that PW and Turboden have been covering.
Mitsubishi, so the release, has been launching a comprehensive three-year plan that will see the company to fully utilize “its strengths and synergy effects through consolidation and restructuring of all operations into four business domains”. Interesting here is the “Energy and Environment” element thereof, which the company sees as the part with the highest importance and “calls for concentrated investment of management resources into this area as a way of achieving business scale expansion rapidly.”
Clearly the acquisition of PWPS and Turboden falls into this category, as it provides immediate access to technology and deal flow for Mitsubishi.
This will provide for increased competition in the turbine market for geothermal and strengthen the business of Mitsubishi, but in particular for PWPS and Turboden. So it will be interesting what will follow for other turbine producers serving the geothermal market globally, e.g. Exergy, Cryostar, TAS Energy and others.
Source: Press release by MHI
