Southcorp has sold its Australasian water heaters business, which includes Australian Water Heaters, New Zealand Water Heaters, Solahart and its interest in Hotstream, China to Paloma Industries Limited, of Nagoya, Japan and Rheem Manufacturing Company of New York. Rheem is a wholly owned subsidiary of Paloma.
The sale results from the company Board’s decision to move towards Southcorp Limited becoming a pure wine company.
Paloma, a privately held company, is one of the world’s largest manufacturers of water heaters, air conditioners, central warm air furnaces, commercial boilers, gas space heaters and gas cooking appliances. Paloma has manufacturing plants throughout Japan. Rheem has facilities in the USA, Canada, Mexico and Argentina as well as a boiler plant (Raypak) in Melbourne. The operations include the Rheem branded water heating and air conditioning products sold throughout the world other than in Australia and New Zealand.
