Ecolab Acquires Brazilian Pest Control Firm

Ecolab Inc. announced today it has purchased Microbiotecnica, the leading provider of commercial pest elimination services in Brazil. The acquisition is part of Ecolab’s strategy to expand its international pest elimination business, which now spans North America and selective countries in Asia Pacific and Latin America. Microbiotecnica has annual sales of about $3 million. Terms of the transaction were not announced.

“Pest Elimination has been and continues to be a terrific growth business for us, with application for our many customers around the world,” said Ecolab’s chairman and chief executive officer Allan L. Schuman. “This acquisition, our first pest elimination transaction in South America, represents a solid start to building our service in that region. We expect to make further acquisitions in both this region and others as we fill in geographic areas and extend our varied services to further meet our global customers’ needs.”

Ecolab is the leading global developer and marketer of premium cleaning, sanitizing, pest elimination, maintenance and repair products and services for the hospitality, institutional and industrial markets. For the year ended December 31, 2000, Ecolab reported sales of $2.3 billion; including European joint venture sales, Ecolab’s global sales coverage was $3.1 billion.