Bauer Equipment America Buys Gefco’s Water Well Operations

Manufacturing Moves to Texas; Sales, Service Office Planned for Enid

Attendees crowd the Gefco display at Groundwater Week in early December, where the company unveiled new high-end and entry-level rigs.

Source: Jeremy Verdusco

Bauer Equipment America, part of the Germany-based Bauer Group, has agreed to buy Enid, Oklahoma-based Gefco’s water well drilling business and related assets. In a release, it says the purchase will “continue the legacy of the well-known Gefco brand.”

“We look forward to continue the legacy of Gefco, which is based on their water well drilling business,” says Jochen Grundmann, CEO of Bauer Equipment America. “We will use the Gefco service quality and the outstanding customer legacy to build a sustainable water well drilling business in North America, and will grow the business and the brand internationally with the Bauer global network.”

Bauer Equipment America will take over water well business inventory, and focus key Gefco personnel in production, supply chain, engineering and service on Conroe, Texas, maintaining expertise for the company. Plans are to honor the brand’s roots with a service and sales location in Enid.

Both parties have signed the letter of intent with an expected close for the purchase agreement within the next six weeks. During that time, Enid operations will continue without interruptions. Sales and service staff are ready to see customers and the accounts.

Bauer Equipment America is part of the Bauer Group, a Germany-based provider of services, equipment and products related to ground and groundwater. Bauer Group has 230-year history.

“Gefco is an important brand for the water well business strategy of Bauer in the U.S.A.,” says Wolfgang Puennel, head of the Water, Energy and Mining division of Bauer Maschinen GmbH. “We will use the world-class production facility in Conroe, Texas, to build the Gefco product, and look forward to maintaining the Gefco quality and competence going forward with the key personnel established in Texas.”

In a release, Bauer says that for almost 60 years its equipment has represented the highest performance and quality, and constant innovation. The Bauer Maschinen Group a market leader in development and manufacture of specialist foundation engineering equipment. Bauer Maschinen GmbH, which is also the holding company for a number of subsidiaries, designs and builds large-diameter drilling rigs, duty-cycle cranes, trench cutters, grabs and vibrators, as well as the related tooling at its plants in Schrobenhausen, Aresing and Edelshausen.

Bauer Maschinen GmbH subsidiaries manufacture a variety of mixing and separation equipment, as well as rotary drive systems and equipment for drilling small-diameter boreholes and wells. The Bauer Maschinen Group also operates manufacturing facilities in the United States, Russia, China, Malaysia, Italy, Singapore and Turkey. For more information, visit bma.bauer.de.