MIAMI--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 30, 2016-- Watsco, Inc. (NYSE: WSO) announced today that it has acquired an additional 10% ownership interest in Carrier Enterprise Northeast LLC, a joint venture with Carrier Corporation, a world leader in high-technology air conditioning, heating and refrigeration solutions and part of UTC Climate, Controls & Security, a unit of United Technologies Corp. The transaction raises Watsco’s ownership stake to 70%. Consideration was approximately $43 million and was paid in cash.

The joint venture has sales of approximately $500 million in two countries, including 43 locations in the northeastern United States and 12 locations in Mexico, offering a variety of products manufactured by Carrier along with approximately 25,000 other SKUs.

Albert Nahmad, Watsco's Chairman & Chief Executive Officer said: “The formation of our Carrier Enterprise joint ventures has proven to be transformational for our company. The collaboration between Watsco and Carrier has produced terrific results and we are happy to invest further in what has been an unqualified success for both companies.”

About Watsco

Watsco improves indoor living and working environments with air conditioning and heating solutions that provide comfort regardless of the outdoor climate. There are approximately 89 million central air conditioning and heating systems installed in the United States that have been in service for more than 10 years. Older systems often operate below today’s government mandated energy efficiency and environmental standards. Watsco has an opportunity to accelerate the replacement of these systems at a scale greater than our competitors as the movement toward reducing energy consumption and its environmental impact continues. This is especially important since heating and cooling accounts for approximately half of the energy consumed in a typical U.S. home.

Watsco’s traditional sales channel is through one of its 568 locations in the United States, Canada, Mexico and Puerto Rico, and on an export basis to Latin America and the Caribbean. This network has been built over the last 25 years and serves 88,000 active customers. Watsco is developing and investing in technologies to enable sales via e-commerce, on-line marketplaces and through the retail sales channel. As the industry leader, we believe that significant growth potential remains given that the marketplace for HVAC/R products at the consumer level is estimated to be $80 billion annually. Additional information about Watsco may be found at http://www.watsco.com.

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Source: Watsco, Inc.

Watsco, Inc.
Barry S. Logan, 305-714-4102
Senior Vice President
blogan@watsco.com