ST. PAUL, Ecolab announced today that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire CoolIT Systems, a high-growth, high-margin leader in liquid cooling technology for next-gen AI data centers. CoolIT is expected to generate approximately $550 million in sales over the next 12 months. With CoolIT’s rapid sales growth, the acquisition is expected to significantly strengthen the company’s Global High-Tech growth engine and accelerate Global Water’s organic sales growth rate by 2% and Ecolab’s total organic sales growth rate by 1%. The acquisition, from funds managed by KKR, positions Ecolab as a comprehensive cooling solutions provider by advancing its capabilities across the rapidly growing data center market.
CoolIT is a pure-play data center liquid cooling company with end-to-end capabilities that designs and manufactures high-performance liquid cooling systems, including coolant distribution units (CDUs), cold plates and direct-to-chip cooling technologies. With more than 25 years of experience, their technology helps the world’s largest hyperscale and colocation operators run more efficiently and reliably. As data centers shift from air cooling to liquid cooling to support rising compute demands, CoolIT’s mission-critical technologies provide the performance needed for advanced AI workloads.
By combining CoolIT’s anchor thermal engineering technologies and design excellence with Ecolab’s expertise in water, chemistry, fluid management, digital monitoring and global service, Ecolab is bolstering its Cooling-as-a-Service offering. This integrated solution helps AI data centers improve performance, reduce downtime and lower water use across their operations.
Under the terms of the agreement, Ecolab will pay approximately $4.75 billion in cash at the closing of the transaction, subject to customary adjustments. This represents 29x and 24x estimated next 12-month and 2027 adjusted EBITDA for CoolIT.
“AI is transforming the demands on data centers, and liquid cooling is one of the critical technologies that makes advanced computing possible,” said Christophe Beck, Ecolab chairman and chief executive officer. “By bringing together CoolIT’s engineered cooling technologies with Ecolab’s expertise in water, chemistry and digital service, we can provide our customers a complete cooling solution that improves performance and reliability while reducing water and energy use. This acquisition expands our role in serving the AI ecosystem—semiconductor fabs that manufacture chips, power plants that fuel the chips, and data centers that utilize the chips—and positions Ecolab as the partner that the world’s largest technology companies rely on to grow responsibly and sustainably.”
Strategic Highlights
CoolIT is a high-growth, high-margin global leader in advanced liquid cooling technologies with 100% focus on the data center market. The acquisition enables Ecolab to rapidly accelerate its recurring, high-margin data center cooling business, by adding mission-critical anchor technologies including CDUs, cold plates, liquid loops and rack manifolds, with substantial cross-selling opportunities.
CoolIT will double Ecolab’s Global High-Tech market opportunity from $5 billion to $10 billion, with this market growing strong double-digits annually. The combination complements Ecolab’s existing reach across more than 1,000 data centers by providing deep preexisting relationships with the world’s major hyperscaler and colocation customers, with strong revenue growth visibility from large-scale data center deployments. CoolIT also contributes advanced engineering, design and validation capabilities, highlighted by custom-designed solutions for leading AI chip developers, including NVIDIA and AMD, along with manufacturing and supply chain expertise to support rapid scaling.
Financial Highlights
The acquisition is expected to be accretive to Ecolab’s sales growth, accelerating Global Water’s organic sales growth rate by 2% and Ecolab’s organic sales growth rate by 1%, beginning one year after closing. Excluding non-cash amortization costs, the transaction is expected to be accretive to adjusted diluted earnings per share in 2028, with the contribution building significantly thereafter. Returns are expected to be significantly above Ecolab’s weighted average cost of capital.
The acquisition will be financed with new transaction debt. As a result, pro forma net debt to adjusted EBITDA is anticipated to be approximately 3x at transaction close, returning to 2x leverage by the end of the second year after closing.
The acquisition is expected to close in the third quarter of 2026, subject to regulatory approvals and other customary closing conditions.
2026 EPS Outlook
Ecolab expects first quarter 2026 adjusted diluted earnings per share in the $1.69 to $1.71 range, rising 13% to 14% compared with adjusted diluted earnings per share of $1.50 a year ago.
For the full-year 2026, excluding the impact of CoolIT, Ecolab continues to expect adjusted diluted earnings per share in the $8.43 to $8.63 range, rising 12% to 15% compared with adjusted diluted earnings per share of $7.53 in 2025.
Ecolab will release its first quarter 2026 results on Tuesday, April 28, 2026.
