Houlihan Lokey Advises Balboa Water Group

Houlihan Lokey is pleased to announce that Balboa Water Group (Balboa), a portfolio company of AEA Investors LP (AEA), has been acquired by Helios Technologies (NASDAQ:HLIO). The transaction closed on November 9, 2020.

Balboa is an innovative market leader of electronic controls, connected instrumentation, and software for the health and wellness industry with proprietary and patented technology that enables end-to-end electronic control systems for therapy baths and spas. Headquartered in Costa Mesa, California, the company is a global operation selling into 47 different countries and utilizing a new state-of-the-art manufacturing facility in Baja, Mexico.

AEA has an extraordinary global network built over many years, which includes leading industrial families, business executives, and leaders, many of whom invest with AEA as active individual investors and/or join its portfolio company boards or act in other advisory roles. Today, its approximately 90 investment professionals operate globally with offices in New York, Connecticut, London, Munich, and Shanghai. AEA manages funds that have more than $15 billion of invested and committed capital, including the leveraged buyouts of middle-market companies as well as mezzanine and senior debt investments. The company invests across three sectors: value-added industrials, consumer, and services.

Helios Technologies is a global industrial technology leader that develops and manufactures hydraulic and electronic control solutions for diverse markets. The company operates in two business segments: Hydraulics and Electronics. The Hydraulics segment markets and sells products globally under the brands of Sun Hydraulics for its cartridge valve technology; Custom Fluid Power for its hydraulic system design; and Faster, which provides quick-release coupling solutions. Global Electronics brands include Enovation Controls and Murphy for fully tailored solutions with a broad range of rugged and reliable instruments such as displays, controls, and other instrumentation products.

Houlihan Lokey served as the exclusive financial advisor to AEA on the sale of Balboa and assisted in initiating, structuring, and negotiating the transaction on its behalf. This deal underscores Houlihan Lokey’s long-standing reputation and credentials as a premier advisor to the industrial technologies sector and demonstrates the strong market for instrumentation companies exhibiting differentiated technologies and secular growth.