Zurich-headquartered ABB has agreed to acquire British engineering company Rotork in a deal valued at approximately $5.5bn (£4.1bn), strengthening its position in industrial automation and expanding its offering for process industries and critical infrastructure.
The acquisition brings together two established industrial automation companies, adding Rotork’s intelligent electric actuators and flow control technologies to ABB’s automation portfolio. The companies said the acquisition would strengthen ABB’s position in intelligent field devices, extending its capabilities across the “sense-control-act” automation loop used to monitor and control industrial processes.
Under the terms of the offer, Rotork shareholders will receive 503p in cash per share, valuing Rotork at around $5.5bn. The transaction surpasses ABB’s $4.2bn acquisition of Baldor Electric in 2011 and its $3.9bn purchase of Thomas & Betts in 2012, making it the largest acquisition in the company’s history.
Rotork manufactures electric, pneumatic and hydraulic actuators, valve gearboxes and associated software for customers in sectors including oil and gas, water, power generation, chemicals and other process industries. Its products automate and monitor valves and dampers used in critical industrial infrastructure.
ABB said Rotork’s technologies complement its existing automation business and would enhance its ability to deliver integrated automation solutions for customers operating large-scale industrial facilities and infrastructure. The acquisition will also increase ABB’s exposure to higher-margin products, lifecycle services and recurring revenues, while enabling Rotork’s intelligent diagnostics and asset management technologies to be integrated with ABB’s digital platforms.
“This transaction is in line with our focus on electrification and automation and is expected to expand our offering for large and complex infrastructure and industries,” said ABB Chief Executive Morten Wierod. “Rotork’s business is highly complementary to our existing automation portfolio and will strengthen our position at the field-device layer.”
The announcement came alongside ABB’s second-quarter results, which showed record quarterly orders, strong revenue growth and improved operational EBITA margins. The company said demand had strengthened across most regions and customer segments, driven by “exceptional” order growth from data centres, continued investment in grid stability and reliability, and improving conditions in commercial buildings.
Rotork generated approximately $1bn in revenue during 2025, with an adjusted operating margin of 24.6%. ABB said it expects the acquisition to increase group revenue by around 3% and expand the revenue of its Automation business by approximately 12%, while immediately improving Operational EBITA margins.
Upon completion, Rotork will operate as a separate division within ABB’s Automation business under a strategic growth mandate, reflecting ABB’s decentralised operating model. ABB said this would allow Rotork to retain its customer proximity and engineering expertise while benefiting from ABB’s global reach, digital capabilities and service network. The company also said it had no current plans to make significant changes to Rotork’s UK manufacturing and technology footprint.
ABB said the acquisition would be financed through existing cash resources and committed bank facilities. Additional liquidity is expected from the planned sale of ABB’s Robotics business to SoftBank, which is due to generate approximately $4.8bn in net proceeds later this year. Wierod said ABB would continue to have capacity for further acquisitions alongside its existing share buyback programme.
The deal is subject to shareholder approval and customary regulatory clearances and is expected to complete during the first half of 2027.
The move also reflects a broader wave of consolidation across the industrial automation sector, as leading suppliers invest in technologies spanning intelligent field devices, industrial software and artificial intelligence.
Earlier this month, Schneider Electric agreed to acquire industrial AI software provider Cognite in a $3.1bn all-cash deal, strengthening its AVEVA software business with industrial data, contextualisation and agentic AI capabilities. Schneider Electric said the acquisition would create a more comprehensive industrial intelligence platform spanning engineering, operations and asset management.
The transaction also follows Siemens’ acquisition of engineering simulation software specialist Altair last year in a deal valued at around $10bn. Siemens said the acquisition would strengthen its Xcelerator platform by combining simulation, high-performance computing, data science and artificial intelligence to accelerate digital engineering and industrial software development.
