Eaton Offers $9.5B To Buy Data Center Cooling-Focused Boyd Thermal

The deal, which would give the battery and backup provider a cooling product for its data center business, is expected to close in 2026.

Battery and backup giant Eaton plans to acquire the data center cooling business Boyd Thermal for $9.5 billion, the company announced on Monday.

Boyd Thermal is a business unit inside Boyd Corp., which is owned by Goldman Sachs Asset Management, according to Dublin-based Eaton.

Boyd Thermal makes ruggedized products for data center, aerospace, and industrial applications across several verticals. According to a statement announcing the deal, Boyd Thermal has forecast sales of $1.7 billion for 2026. Eaton said the $9.5 billion purchase price is 22.5 times Boyd Thermal’s adjusted EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization) for 2026.

“Bringing together Boyd Thermal’s highly-engineered liquid cooling technology and global service model with Eaton’s existing products and scale will provide enhanced value to customers,” said Eaton CEO Paulo Ruiz in a statement. “In data centers particularly, our combined expertise in both power and liquid cooling from the chip to the grid will enable customers to manage increasing power demands more effectively.”

Following the announcement, Eaton Corp.’s share price rose $4.24 or about 1.11 percent in afternoon trading on the New York Stock Exchange to $385.88.

The Boyd Corp. brand will continue to operate Boyd’s engineered materials business, which delivers advanced technologies that seal, shield, and insulate high performance applications across the industries, as an independent company backed by Goldman Sachs.

“This is a transformative day for the entire Boyd team, and I am confident that combining Eaton’s chip-to-grid power and Boyd’s Chip-to-Ambient cooling architectures will help accelerate the deployment of future AI datacenters,” said Boyd CEO Doug Britt in a statement.

The move by Eaton comes about a year after rival Schneider Electric announced that it planned to acquire a 75 percent controlling interest in Motivair Corp. for $850 million. The Rueil-Malmaison, France-based Schneider closed that deal in February, with plans to buy the remaining 25 percent of the company by 2028.

Motivair falls within the Energy Management business of Schneider Electric.

Boyd Thermal is a global business with more than 5,000 employees and manufacturing sites across North America, Asia and Europe. It has a decades-long history starting as an aerospace thermal management supplier, the company stated in a press release.

The transaction is subject to customary closing conditions and regulatory approvals. It is expected to close in the second quarter of 2026. Eaton expects Boyd Thermal to be accretive to adjusted earnings in year two after closing, Eaton stated.