Alliance Laundry Systems LLC is a provider of commercial laundry systems. The company designs, manufactures, and markets a line of commercial laundry equipment under various brands in over 100 countries. Among the company’s products are washers, drying tumblers and ironers for the coin laundry, multi-housing laundries, institutional laundries and laundries for consumer residences. Alliance Laundry Systems manufactures products under the brands

Speed Queen In everyday use and in kinematics, the speed (commonly referred to as ''v'') of an object is the magnitude of the change of its position over time or the magnitude of the change of its position per unit of time; it is thus a scalar quanti ...

, Primus, Huebsch, IPSO, and UniMac. The company was founded in 1998 and is based in

Ripon, Wisconsin Ripon is a city in Fond du Lac County, Wisconsin, United States. The population was 7,733 at the 2010 census. The city is surrounded by the Town of Ripon. Ripon is home to the Little White Schoolhouse, the commonly recognized birthplace of ...

. However, Alliance claims the precursor's founding date as the beginning for the company.

History

Background

The company's precursor Barlow & Seelig Manufacturing was established in 1908 and later introduced a hand-operated washer to the marketplace. The

brand was created in 1928 with the introduction of stainless steel wash tubs in 1939 and automatic washers and dryers in 1952. Eventually Barlow & Seelig was renamed Speed Queen Company, and was later purchased by

McGraw-Edison McGraw-Edison was an American manufacturer of electrical equipment. It was created in 1957 through a merger of McGraw Electric and Thomas A. Edison, Inc., and was in turn acquired by Cooper Industries in 1985. Today, the McGraw-Edison brand is us ...

. In 1979, McGraw-Edison sold its appliance division to

Raytheon Company The Raytheon Company was a major U.S. defense contractor and industrial corporation with manufacturing concentrations in weapons and military and commercial electronics. It was previously involved in corporate and special-mission aircraft unti ...

Formation

In February 1998, private equity firm

Bain Capital Bain Capital is an American private investment firm based in Boston. It specializes in private equity, venture capital, credit, public equity, impact investing, life sciences, and real estate. Bain Capital invests across a range of industry se ...

agreed to acquire the commercial laundry business from Raytheon for $358 million. And as a result, Alliance Laundry Systems was formed. In January 2005,

Teachers' Private Capital The Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan Board (french: Régime de retraite des enseignantes et des enseignants de l'Ontario) is an independent organization responsible for administering defined-benefit pensions for school teachers of the Canadian pr ...

, the

private equity In the field of finance, the term private equity (PE) refers to investment funds, usually limited partnerships (LP), which buy and restructure financially weak companies that produce goods and provide services. A private-equity fund is both a ty ...

affiliate of the

Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan The Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan Board (french: Régime de retraite des enseignantes et des enseignants de l'Ontario) is an independent organization responsible for administering defined-benefit pensions for school teachers of the Canadian pr ...

acquired the majority of the equity interests of Alliance Laundry for $450 million.
"Ontario Teachers' to purchase Alliance Laundry Systems LLC". BusinessWire, December 8, 2004 In 2009, the Alliance Laundry Systems University (ALSU) was founded as a corporate university available online to authorized Alliance Laundry Systems distributors, route operators and customers.
. Alliance Laundry Systems University page at Alliance Laundry website In March 2014, the Alliance Laundry acquired Primus Laundry Equipment headquartered in Gullegem, Belgium for approx. $259.4 million. In April 2015, it was reported that Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan was planning to sell Alliance Laundry or issue an IPO, valuing the business at $1.8 billion.
"Ontario Teachers’ Said to Plan Sale or IPO of Alliance Laundry". BloombergBusiness, April 6, 2015 Later in 2015, a majority stake was sold to

BDT Capital Partners Byron David Trott (born December 2, 1958) is the founder, chairman and CEO of BDT Capital Partners, a merchant bank that provides advice and capital to family and founder-led companies. Formerly, Trott was vice chairman of Investment Banking at ...

References

{{reflist Companies based in Wisconsin Fond du Lac County, Wisconsin Manufacturing companies based in Wisconsin Home appliance manufacturers of the United States 1998 establishments in Wisconsin Ripon, Wisconsin American companies established in 1998 Manufacturing companies established in 1998