Smardt founder Richmond-Smith with Jiang Li, chairman and CEO of the TICA Group in 2018
CHINA: Chinese air conditioning manufacturer TICA has acquired the remaining shares in the Montreal-based oil-free centrifugal chiller manufacturer Smardt.
TICA took a majority stake in the Montreal-based Smardt Chiller Group in 2018.
Jiang Li, TICA chairman, has assumed the additional role of executive chairman of Smardt, succeeding Smardt founder Roger Richmond-Smith, who is retiring. Richmond-Smith was also a co-founder of development of magnetic bearing technology with the Turbocor oil-free compressor.
Smardt was founded in 2005 and grew to encompass manufacturing facilities in Canada, USA, Australia, China and Germany and sales and service operations covering the Americas, Asia Pacific, Australia, China and EMEA.
Established in 1991, TICA has four manufacturing plants in China, a factory in Malaysia and research and development centres in China, Japan, Italy, Australia and Canada as well as 100+ sales and service outlets.
The two companies share a primary focus on energy conservation through water-side oil-free chillers and air-side AHUs and system integration.
