United Technologies, a global industrial heavyweight, will invest $270 million for a 49.5 percent stake in Clipper Windpower, a struggling California-based turbine maker.
The deal, announced this week, marks a change in the ownership structure for one of the few major American-owned turbine makers. (Another is General Electric.)
United Technologies, a Hartford-based parent company to businesses such as jet engine maker Pratt & Whitney and elevator maker Otis, has recently shown interest in alternative energy. For example, it has licensed its molten salt storage technology to solar power plant builder SolarReserve.
In a statement on Wednesday, United Technologies said that it “expects to work closely with Clipper Windpower to improve the company’s core technology, manufacturing, product quality, and supply management capabilities.”
The agreement, the company added, “allows U.T.C. to expand its power generation portfolio and enter the high-growth wind power segment.”
Clipper, which is listed on London’s A.I.M. stock exchange, began to look for investors earlier this year as the global recession took its toll and customers delayed turbine orders. Millions of dollars spent fixing defects in some older turbines further sapped Clipper’s cash flow. Its share price rose by close to 20 percent on Thursday, after the deal was announced.
Douglas Pertz, Clipper’s chief executive, said in an interview on Friday that he expects to see the market revive in the latter half of 2010. (On Thursday, G.E. announced a $1.4 billion deal to supply turbines to what would be the nation’s largest wind farm, in Oregon.)
United Technologies has agreed not to acquire additional shares of Clipper for two years following the close of the deal.
Mr. Pertz argued that there are similarities between General Electric and United Technologies — as well as a bit of history.
Clipper’s chairman, James Dehlsen, founded one of the United States’ early wind turbine makers, Zond, in 1980, and subsequently sold it to Enron. When Enron collapsed earlier this decade, General Electric acquired its wind division and subsequently turned the unit into the nation’s biggest turbine manufacturer. (Mr. Dehlsen started Clipper in 2001.)
“G.E. bought a company that was probably half a billion dollars in sales at the time and they have grown it into a $6 billion business,” said Mr. Pertz in a telephone interview Friday. “United Technologies, I would suggest to you, is like the G.E. of old.”
While Clipper focuses on its 2.5-megawatt Liberty model, the company will continue work in the United Kingdom on the development of the world’s largest windmill, a 10-megawatt, 574-foot-tall offshore turbine dubbed Project Britannia.
The Crown Estate, which manages royal property for Queen Elizabeth II, has bought the prototype of the turbine.
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