Yamatake’s Investment In Degree Controls Strengthens Its Building Automation Offerings

Keywords: Building Automation, Environmental Control, Cooling Solutions, Airflow Engineering, BA.

To strengthen its environmental control business in the field of building automation, Yamatake Corporation, a member of azbil Group, has recently announced that it will partly invest in U.S.-based Degree Controls, Inc. The investment agreement was closed on January 12, 2012.

The amount of investment is about 2.5 million dollars, equivalent to a share of about 13.8 percent. Through this investment, Yamatake will collaborate with Degree Controls as a strategic business partner both in sales and technological development.

Degree Controls, headquartered in New Hampshire, is a leading manufacturer providing cooling solutions by using airflow engineering for thermal management to address the heat generated by high-performance electronics for such industries as telecommunications, medical electronics and computers.

Yamatake had already signed an agreement for sales of Degree Controls' AdaptivCOOL in the Japanese market in January 2009, and started sales in July 2009. AdaptivCOOL is a solution product that eliminates issues of hot spots and overcooled areas in the data centers and realizes optimum thermal environment. Installing this system can reduce HVAC-related energy consumption by about 20 percent for a 500 square-meters floor space.

Yamatake will actively propose AdaptivCOOL solutions, not only for the Japanese domestic data center market but also for customers suffering from high heat load. In addition with AdaptivCOOL, Yamatake expects to cooperate with Degree Controls in developing new business in fields such as cooling technologies, temperature and flow sensors, and heat load solutions. The company has set a sales target of 2 billion yen in 5 years by including new solutions.

ARC Advisory Group