nVent Pays $1.75 Billion for Maverick Power in Its Biggest Deal Since the Pentair Spin-Off
The electrical-equipment maker is buying a Texas data-centre power-distribution specialist with an earn-out that could lift the total to $2.3 billion, doubling down on AI infrastructure demand.
What Happened
nVent Electric has agreed to acquire Maverick Power for $1.75 billion, with up to $550 million of additional cash consideration payable if the business hits performance targets, taking the potential total to $2.3 billion. It is the company’s largest acquisition since its 2018 spin-off from Pentair, and the announcement on 24 August sent a clear signal about where nVent sees growth.
Maverick Power, headquartered in McKinney, Texas, manufactures engineered power-distribution and infrastructure systems for data centres. It employs roughly 900 people across Texas and Arizona and is expected to generate approximately $700 million of revenue in 2026. nVent said the deal strengthens its position in the data-centre vertical, adds a power-distribution platform to its portfolio and expands its offering for new power architectures and system-level solutions and services.
Bloomberg framed the purchase as nVent seeking “a bigger piece of the AI boom.” The company filed to raise capital alongside the announcement, signalling that at least part of the consideration will be funded through the markets rather than purely from existing resources. Closing is subject to customary regulatory approvals.
Why It Matters
nVent is buying its way up the data-centre value chain. The company already sells enclosures, liquid cooling and thermal management into hyperscale builds. Adding switchgear-style power distribution lets it pitch a more complete electrical package to customers racing to energise new capacity, and captures more dollars per megawatt deployed.
The earn-out structure hedges an obvious concern. At $1.75 billion for roughly $700 million of revenue, nVent is paying about 2.5 times sales upfront. Tying $550 million to targets protects nVent if the current data-centre capex boom slows, while giving Maverick’s owners a strong incentive to keep delivering through the integration.
Power, not chips, is now the constraint. AI campuses are gated by how quickly they can be connected and distributed, not by server availability. Vendors with the engineering capacity to deliver power-distribution gear at scale hold pricing power, which is why Maverick’s 900-person Texas footprint is worth a premium.
- Capex cyclicality: Data-centre spending is concentrated among a handful of hyperscalers; any pause in their build programmes would hit Maverick's order book directly.
- Integration of a fast-growing private firm: Folding an entrepreneurial manufacturer into a listed group can slow the agility that made it attractive.
- Price paid: A multiple of roughly 2.5 times sales before the earn-out assumes sustained growth; a miss leaves nVent overpaid on the base consideration.
- Structural demand: Power distribution is a bottleneck for AI infrastructure, giving Maverick multi-year visibility on volumes.
- Cross-selling: nVent's existing cooling and enclosure relationships give Maverick access to accounts it could not reach alone.
- Aligned incentives: The $550 million earn-out keeps Maverick's team motivated and limits nVent's downside if targets slip.
Source: nVent Electric