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Generac Holdings Inc. subsidiary has acquired the assets of Ohio-based commercial turf care manufacturer
Mean Green Products LLC for an undisclosed price, the company announced Tuesday.
Vermont-based
DR Power Equipment, which makes a full line of outdoor power equipment, will expand its offerings with Mean Green’s line of battery-powered zero-turn and walk behind mowers and turf care products.
Matt Bieber, president of DR Power Equipment, said the company has watched Mean Green grow and develop new technologies, leading DR Power Equipment to proactively pursue it as an acquisition target.
"Entering the commercial turf care category has been a target of ours for years, but we wanted to do it in an innovative and differentiated way. The improvements in battery technology have now enabled the electrification of large commercial turf care products and Mean Green is leading the way," Bieber said.
Joe Conrad, president and owner of Mean Green, said the company is excited at the opportunity to expand on its vision “to provide consumers with meaningful battery powered equipment,” while Matt Conrad, vice president and owner, said Generac’s push into clean powered products accelerated Mean Green’s interest in becoming part of the company.
Generac has pushed into clean energy in recent years with the
acquisitions of Neurio Technology Inc. and
Pika Energy. Those companies helped Generac launch energy management and storage products for homes with solar panels.
It was actually a 2015 acquisition that brought DR Power Equipment, then known as Country Home Products, under the Generac umbrella.
In 2017, Generac announced it would
move assembly and distribution work for DR Power Equipment products to its facility in Jefferson, Wisconsin while marketing and other core functions remained in Vermont.
Tuesday’s announcement of the Mean Green deal gave no indication of an impact to Generac’s Wisconsin operations from the transaction.
The announcement also comes as it appears Generac lost out on the possibility of acquiring at least a portion of Wauwatosa-based Briggs & Stratton from bankruptcy.
Generac had expressed interest in bidding on at least part of Briggs. The two companies overlap on some products and Briggs has made its own push into commercial battery power in recent years.
On Monday, however, Briggs informed a bankruptcy court that it had received
no additional qualifying bids, moving a likely sale to New York-based private equity firm KPS Capital Partners one step closer to reality.
