Viessmann to significantly expand North American Clean & Cold platform with acquisitions of market leader KPS Global from D Cubed Group

August 13th, 2024 – The Viessmann Generations Group (“Viessmann”), a purpose-driven family company with a heritage of 107 years, signed an agreement to acquire US-based KPS Global LLC (“KPS Global”), a leading manufacturer of insulated panel systems and provider of highly customized solutions, from US-based D Cubed Group, a long-duration private market investor. The transaction remains subject to customary closing conditions and is expected to close in the next 90 days.

The acquisition is part of Viessmann’s purpose of ‘co-creating living spaces for generations to come. KPS Global will be an important strategic expansion step for the Group’s Clean & Cold platform into the North American market.

Headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas (USA), KPS Global is the market leading end-to-end solutions provider in custom enclosures for controlled environments, with the most extensive value chain coverage across design, engineering, self-performed installation and after-services.

Since December 2015, KPS Global has been a privately- held by D Cubed Group and certain other investors, having been created through D Cubed’s simultaneous acquisition of businesses from both Dover Corporation and The Manitowoc Company, Inc. Since then, the combined, independent company has been built into an outstanding organization with leading-edge systems, business-intelligence and innovation that are unrivaled in the industry. The transaction marks KPS Global’s successful development and growth in its traditional food retail market and expansion into additional industries and markets, and also serves as an inflection point for its next level of growth.

Max Viessmann, CEO of Viessmann: “KPS Global and Viessmann are a perfect match and a strong addition to our ecosystem. The KPS business directly contributes to our vision to reduce CO2 emissions and improve the quality of life for the world’s growing population. Our strong European footprint in Clean & Cold offers opportunities to leverage each other’s knowledge and expertise. We look forward to expanding our Clean & Cold North America platform together with KPS Global’s experienced and proven management team to further grow within and beyond its core markets and drive value creation organically and inorganically in line with our purpose of co-creating living spaces for generations to come.”

Mike Eakins, CEO of KPS Global: “D Cubed has been an outstanding partner in the growth and development of our business. We are excited about this opportunity to be a part of the Viessmann Generations Group as we believe this relationship will allow us the opportunity for significant additional growth while maintaining our commitment to our customers, employees and vendors. The strong focus KPS Global has on transforming clean and cold solutions to increase energy efficiency and reduce food waste directly contributes to the Viessmann purpose to co-create living spaces for generations to come. The stability and long-term commitment a family-owned investor of responsible capital brings to the table is really exciting as it allows us to continue to innovate in the market and offer our customers leading edge sustainable solutions.”

Glenn Kaufman, Managing Director of D Cubed: “KPS Global is a truly special company and over the last decade we have built it to be great for the long run. Transferring ownership to Viessmann, a highly regarded long-term focused family enterprise, feels like a perfect capstone to this very successful investment. We wish them nothing but the best and look forward to their building on what has been accomplished to steward KPS to a next level of success.“

KPS Global employs over 850 people and has an unrivaled US-wide coast-to-coast footprint. The company operates five production facilities with 750,000 combined square feet of manufacturing space and serves hundreds of customers each year, providing close proximity and fast fulfillment advantages.

The company offers a broad range of walk-in solutions and services for cold chain and non-refrigerated environments across the food, retail and scientific market among others. In addition, the company provides a wide variety of replacement equipment and aftermarket parts, including doors and door parts, strip curtains, batten strips, sweeps and more.

KPS Global caters to large, non-cyclical end markets across food retail, scientific and cold storage. In recent years, the company has also accelerated growth in the area of non-food retail applications, gaining customers in Pharmaceuticals, Blood Banks, Agriculture and Battery Dry Rooms amongst others.

As the industry’s top innovation leader, KPS Global has led the transformation of Customized Food Retail Walk-In Solutions over the past years. The solutions portfolio enables customers to reduce their carbon footprint and supports them in their own growth and sustainability objectives. The company’s patented panel technology reduces cooling demand, energy usage and food waste. KPS Global will continue operations as normal through their five, strategically located manufacturing facilities.

With the planned acquisition of KPS Global, Viessmann will significantly expand and complement its Clean & Cold platform. Viessmann’s trajectory in the Clean & Cold sector dates back to 1974, when the production of cold rooms started in Hof, Germany. Today, the family company’s European Clean & Cold platform is a leading supplier of clean and cold room solutions for safe environments of goods and processes both in food service as well as healthcare applications.

In 2023, Viessmann took its first step into the North American market through the acquisition of BMIL Technologies. BMIL is based in Morehead City, North Carolina (USA) and operates as a leading system integrator, supplying cold rooms and refrigeration equipment for industrial and commercial refrigeration applications.

About Viessmann

Founded in 1917, the independent family company Viessmann is today a global, broadly diversified Group. All activities are based on the company’s purpose "We co-create living spaces for generations to come”. This is the passion and responsibility that the large worldwide Viessmann family brings to life every day. Viessmann forms an ecosystem of entrepreneurs and co-creators with a clear focus on CO2 avoidance, CO2 reduction and CO2 capturing.

About KPS Global

KPS Global is the market leading end-to-end solutions provider of custom enclosures for controlled environments including aftermarket replacement equipment and seamless installation services. The company has five strategically located manufacturing facilities to serve customers anywhere in the world. Headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas, KPS Global is a privately held company with more than 850 employees.

About D Cubed Group

D Cubed Group is a highly differentiated and long-duration private-market investment firm that actively invests equity capital in profitable, smalland mid-scale businesses operating in specifically targeted sectors of the consumer and business services industries. The firm is focused entirely on delivering truly enhanced long-term risk-adjusted investment returns for its investors and is intentionally focused on delivering benefits aligned with those sought by business oriented, high net worth investors. D Cubed focuses on the creation of value through concentrating its investing in a limited group of truly special businesses and providing all-in support as a truly engaged partner, not having arbitrary timeframes, and providing an exceptionally deep and wide range of resources to support their growth into long-term great companies. For more information on D Cubed Group, visit www.dcubedgroup.com.

Press Contact:
Viessmann
Byung-Hun Park
Vice President Corporate Communications
E: huni@viessmann.com
M: +49 151 649 113 17