Senior officials of Bahrain-based Seera Investment Bank visited the Manchester (England) headquarters of BWA Water Additives following the completion of Seera’s $200 million leveraged acquisition of the water company.

Seera said it considered the acquisition of BWA as a strong addition to its existing portfolio.
Asaad Albanwan, chairman of the Seera Board, said BWA was a global leader, providing innovative and effective water treatment solutions and his company would look forward to exploiting the synergies of both firms to gain a competitive advantage.
“Global demand for specialty water treatment chemicals will experience significant growth over the coming years and we feel very positively about investing in this sector,” Albanwal said.
Abdulla Janahi, Seera’s general manager and acting CEO, said the transaction was highly significant given the fact that leveraged finance was going through turbulent times.
“The level of leverage we were able to secure was at the high end, illustrating the very positive support that Seera and BWA as a company received from the banking industry.” Janahi said BWA’s growth prospects were tremendous in a region like the Middle East, where considerable investments in water infrastructure were forecasted to mitigate the growing supply-demand imbalance.
“The company already has a leading presence in the desalination sector. Its specialised process know-how and intellectual property base, backed by pioneering in-house research, give it a leading position in the water-treatment market. This is a market that is resistant to market cycles. BWA’s prospects, therefore, remain extremely buoyant, given its strong financial fundamentals.”
BWA has a well-developed portfolio of high-performance branded products to meet the requirements of 370 customers in 85 countries. The portfolio covers three high-growth segments: water desalination, industrial water treatment processes and secondary oil recovery. The company’s products are used to treat microbiological growth in process water and to control and prevent corrosion of iron and steel as well as inorganic deposits on the surface of pumps and pipes. It constantly upgrades its products through research conducted at its two laboratories in the UK and the US.
Seera was incorporated in 2006 in Bahrain as United International Bank.