Alliance Laundry Systems LLC is an American 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, 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 7,863 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. The city is surrounded by the Ripon (town), Wisconsin, Town of Ripon. Ripon is home to the Little White S ...

. However, Alliance claims Speed Queen's founding date of 1908 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 Speed Queen 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. In 1979, McGraw-Edison sold its appliance division to

Raytheon Company Raytheon is a business unit of RTX Corporation and is a major List of United States defense contractors, U.S. defense contractor and industrial corporation with manufacturing concentrations in weapons and military and commercial electronics. Fou ...

Formation

In February 1998, private equity firm

Bain Capital Bain Capital, LP is an American Investment company, private investment firm based in Boston, Massachusetts, Boston, Massachusetts, with around $185 billion of assets under management. It specializes in private equity, venture capital, credit, p ...

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

private equity Private equity (PE) is stock in a private company that does not offer stock to the general public; instead it is offered to specialized investment funds and limited partnerships that take an active role in the management and structuring of the co ...

affiliate of the

Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan The Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan Board () is an independent organization responsible for administering defined benefit pension plan, defined-benefit pensions for school teachers of the provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of ...

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 BDT & MSD Partners is an American merchant bank that is co-headquartered in Chicago and New York City. The firm has both an advisory platform and an investment platform. History In January 2023, BDT & MSD was formed from the merger of BDT & Co ...

. The Pension Plan retained a minority stake in the company.

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