This acquisition establishes Johnson Controls as a market leader in the high-growth data centre sector, with industry-leading cooling equipment technology and modular data centre solutions.

Johnson Controls, the global leader for smart, healthy and sustainable buildings, today announced it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Silent-Aire, a global leader in hyperscale data centre cooling and modular critical infrastructure solutions. This all cash transaction is valued at up to $870 million, including an upfront payment of approximately $630 million and additional payments to be made subject to the achievement of post-closing earnout milestones.

Silent-Aire specialises in the design, engineering and manufacturing of mission critical custom air handlers and modular data centres for hyperscale cloud and co-location providers. Silent-Aire’s portfolio of data centre solutions allow for rapid deployment of critical infrastructure in flexible configurations, with a focus on quality, scalability, and speed-to-market. Silent-Aire’s revenue for fiscal year 2021 (May) is expected to approximate $650 million.

“With Silent-Aire, Johnson Controls has a significant opportunity to increase our focus on the data centre vertical and accelerate growth in this attractive end market by combining the strengths of our global scale in manufacturing and service, with leading-edge innovation and a broad portfolio of technologies dedicated to serving hyperscale providers,” said George Oliver, Johnson Controls chairman and CEO. “This acquisition perfectly aligns with several of our key strategic growth initiatives and underscores our focus on creating shareholder value,” Oliver continued. “We are incredibly excited to welcome Silent-Aire to the Johnson Controls family as we look to build upon their success of nearly 30 years of innovation, operational expertise, and deep customer relationships.”

The continuous migration of applications to the cloud (SaaS) has resulted in unprecedented demand for computing power and the rapid expansion of data centre infrastructure. Over the last several years, this trend has overwhelmingly favored the development of hyperscale cloud and colocation facilities. Hyperscale  providers have unique capabilities in deploying large-scale computing power with increasingly more efficient, more rapidly deployed solutions and with greater geographic reach. To accomplish this, hyperscalers require trusted global partners, such as Silent-Aire, that provide highly efficient, sustainable and reliable products along with consistent and dependable execution.

“Silent-Aire grew up with the cloud and our DNA translates what it means to be a Hyperscale Data Centre Company,” said Lindsey Leckelt Silent-Aire Co-CEO. “Being an innovative partner with early adopters, we broke through traditional design barriers that pushed energy initiatives in what led to how most Hyperscale Data Centres are cooled and engineered today,” he continued. “The culture in our business captures this unique skill set and is scaled through to our engineering, operations, and manufacturing teams to keep up with the explosive growth of cloud providers. Johnson Controls shares our vision to scale as a Data Centre Platform business, which will enable us to serve our partners globally."