BRYN MAWR, Pa.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aqua America (NYSE: WTR) announced today that its Ohio and North Carolina subsidiaries completed acquisitions of water system assets in both states at year-end. Earlier in 2014, Aqua America’s other regulated subsidiaries completed acquisitions in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Illinois, Texas, and Virginia, bringing the total number of acquisitions to 16 for this year. These acquisitions were complemented by the continued rebound in the housing market since the post-recession lows, allowing the company to meet its overall customer growth goals.
Aqua Ohio purchased the assets of the Lake Mohawk and Lake Tomahawk water utilities that serve approximately 3,100 people in Northeastern Ohio for $1.76 million.
The Lake Mohawk development will be operated by current Aqua Ohio personnel out of existing operations centers. Each of the communities is within 30 minutes of existing Aqua operations, allowing the utility to take advantage of economies of scale with respect to operating the systems.
“We welcome residents of these two lake communities into the Aqua family of customers,” said Aqua Ohio President Ed Kolodziej. “We look forward to providing them with a high level of service and reliability, and quality water.”
Aqua America Chairman Nicholas DeBenedictis said, “Our purchase of the former Ohio American Water properties in May 2012 added more than 150,000 people to Aqua’s service territory, making us the largest private water system in the state. Having successfully integrated those operations into our Aqua Ohio company, we are now fulfilling our goal to continue to grow the company in Ohio, our second largest state operation.”
Aqua North Carolina acquired the water system assets of the Honeycutt Water systems for $75,000. The systems serve about 260 people in the Glennburn, Knollwood and Wimbledon developments in Gaston County. Aqua will operate the systems from its western regional office in Denver, North Carolina. Aqua North Carolina serves more than 250,000 people in 51 counties statewide.
Additionally, during 2014, the company’s non-regulated subsidiary, Aqua Resources, completed the acquisition of two water and wastewater service companies, which are expected to have combined annual revenues of $12.5 million in 2015. These companies provide infrastructure rehabilitation and water and wastewater services to municipal and private companies. Aqua Resources also was awarded five operations and maintenance contracts throughout the year for water and wastewater systems in Pennsylvania and New Jersey.
Aqua America is one of the largest U.S.-based, publicly traded water utilities and serves nearly 3 million people in Pennsylvania, Ohio, North Carolina, Illinois, Texas, New Jersey, Indiana and Virginia. Aqua America is listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol WTR. Visit AquaAmerica.com for more information.
This release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. There are important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied including the projected combined annual sales of the operations acquired by Aqua Resources by such forward-looking statements including: general economic business conditions; housing and customer growth trends; the success of growth initiatives; the successful integration of the acquisitions into the Company, the success of the company’s unregulated acquisitions, and other factors discussed in our Annual Report on Form 10-K, which is on file with the Securities and Exchange Commission. For more information regarding risks and uncertainties associated with Aqua America’s business, please refer to Aqua America’s annual, quarterly and other SEC filings. Aqua America is not under any obligation — and expressly disclaims any such obligation — to update or alter its forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.
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