NEWS

August 2013 Membrane Technology5

I n B r i e f

Tri-Tech makes management changes China’s Tri-Tech Holding Inc, which provides turn-key water resources management, and water and wastewater treatment systems, has appointed Brian McClellan as General Manager, Tri-Tech Infrastructure Llc in the USA, follow-ing the retirement of James Schwartz. The com-pany has also appointed Satish Kumar Chopra and Rongguo Shi as the chief executive officer, and senior vice president, of its of operation in India, respectively. Weidong Bi has taken over as President, Tranhold Environmental (Beijing) Tech Co Ltd.

Xylem acquires dewatering business Water technology company Xylem Inc of White Plains, New York, USA has acquired Pollmann Pumpen Ltd, a privately owned German dewa-tering technology and services company, for approximately $3 million. ‘This acquisition is part of the strategic expansion of our dewatering business, designed to capitalise on the growing demand for pump rental within the construc-tion, municipal, mining and industrial sectors across Europe,’ explained Andrew Jones, who is the vice president and director of Xylem’s dewatering business unit. ‘Bringing Pollmann Pumpen into the Xylem family will enable us to further strengthen our rental and services busi-ness in an important market.’

Degrémont launches latest guideDegrémont, a water treatment specialist that serves local authorities and industrial cus-tomers, has launched the third edition of its ‘Innovations Guide’. Fully interactive, the 2013 edition employs an educational approach by illustrating innovative water treatment processes through diagrams, three-dimensional animation and videos, says the company. It is available on-line in both French and English.

More information:www.degremont.com/innovations-guide

Aquaporin appoints new vice president Steen Ulrik Madsen has been appointed Vice President, Business Development, Aquaporin A/s. He heads the cleantech firm’s newly estab-lished Business Development Department, based in Copenhagen, Denmark. Aquaporin says that Madsen will play an important role in the process of transforming the company from an entrepreneurial business into an inter-national, commercial product organisation. He holds an MBA, INSEAD from Fontainebleau, France, a MSc in economics and has more than 30 years of experience in sales, business development and management in various industries. According to company, he will be responsible for bringing its first product to the market in 2014.

Porvair continues to make progress towards its objectives

Results for the six-month period ended 31 May 2013 show that

UK-based Porvair Plc is continuing to make progress towards its objectives for the year.

According to the specialist filtration and environmental technology group, revenue grew 8% to £38.6 million, compared with the corre-sponding period a year earlier, and profit before tax grew 27% to £3.1 million, compared with £2.4 million.

The firm says that the second half of 2013 has started with order books at record levels – helped by large contracts announced earlier in the year. Demand across the group is gener-ally good, with weakness in some US markets more than offset by strength elsewhere. The fundamentals of the markets in which the group operates – aviation, energy and industrial process, environmental laboratory supplies and molten metals – look satisfactory.

Revenue from microfiltration grew by 15% from £21.3 million in 2012 to £24.5 million. Operating profits grew 43% to £3.5 million. Substantial progress was made in this division during the first six months and several large contracts are now under way.

Under the $10-million contract with multina-tional steel-maker POSCO, announced in 2011, the division is scheduled to make its second delivery later this year. This project is to design and build a char filtration system for a substitute natural gas installation based in Gwangyang, South Korea. A larger contract for a similar pro-ject was signed in February 2013 with Reliance Industries for its installation at Jamnagar, India. The scope of this work was extended in April. Finally, an £11-million contract with the UK Government was announced in January 2013, with deliveries starting in 2014.

All three projects will have an impact on the financial results of the group over several years, initially in reported working capital, but also in reported sales and margins, as the projects are managed through to completion. In addition to these contracts, orders in the energy and industrial sectors have been robust and are well ahead of the previous year, both in Europe and the USA.

The acquisition of the trade and assets of Chand Eisenmann Metallurgical (CEM) for $5.5 million was completed on 4 June 2013 (see Membrane Technology July, page 1). CEM makes a broad range of powdered metal indus-

trial filters – selling largely in the USA and Canada. There is a good fit between the two businesses and Porvair sees a host of cross-selling and new product development oppor-tunities. It says that it will be investing in the CEM plant in Maine over the next 12 months to allow room for expansion.

Bioscience filtration remains a small, but interesting part of the group. A business unit has been set up in the UK in collaboration with the University of Swansea to develop Chromatrap, a filtration product for epigenetic research. This remains in its research and development phase. Consideration is being given to licensing other aspects of the firm’s bioscience technology.

Commenting on the outlook, Ben Stocks, Chief Executive, Porvair, said: ‘Porvair’s strate-gic direction and operating objectives remain consistent and continue to produce good results. We focus on niche markets which have structural growth drivers. 2013 has started sat-isfactorily and order books are healthy across the group. Whilst some of our US markets have been quieter in the year to date, this has been balanced by strength elsewhere.’

‘The board remains cautious about the gen-eral economic outlook, but the second half has started well and we currently expect to see growth across the business in the rest of 2013. There remains plenty of opportunity in the Porvair businesses. We continue to invest in: new product development; US expansion for microfiltration; and enlarged Chinese facili-ties for metals filtration. The board’s outlook remains positive and management’s expectations for the year have increased.’

Contacts:

Porvair Filtration Group Ltd, 1 Concorde Close,

Segensworth, Fareham, Hampshire PO15 5RT, UK.

Tel: +44 1489 864330, www.porvairfiltration.com

Porvair Plc, 7 Regis Place, Bergen Way, King’s Lynn,

Norfolk PE30 2JN, UK. Tel: +44 1553 765500,

www.porvair.com

H2O Innovation awarded contracts amounting to C$4.7 million

Canada’s H2O Innovation Inc, which designs and supplies custom-built

and integrated water treatment sys-tems, has been awarded new contracts totalling C$4.7 million for municipal and industrial water treatment projects in the USA and Canada.