🔒Deals, deals, deals: Maine companies are hot property

The recent acquisition of Waterboro-based Howe & Howe Technologies, maker of sophisticated off-road and robotic vehicles for the Army, is just the latest in what is shaping up as a very busy year of deals in Maine.

Howe & Howe will become part of Textron Systems, itself a unit of the $14 billion defense contractor Textron (NYSE: TXT), owner of brands like Bell, Beechcraft and Arctic Cat.

This list is from a search of Mainebiz archives (under keyword “acquired”) and may not be comprehensive. It also does not include real estate deals, such as the sale of a B&B, nor does it include sales of vacant mills or company sites.

Deals for Maine companies (with headline and date news ran in Mainebiz):

Textron Systems to buy Waterboro robotics firm: Howe & Howe Technologies (Oct. 26)

South Paris's Mingle Analytics merges with Utah's SilverVue (Oct. 25)

ND Paper to buy and reopen Old Town Mill, restoring 100 jobs (Oct. 11)

South African company buys Windham antenna maker mWave (Oct. 5): Buyer was Alaris Holdings Ltd.

Premium Brands completes acquisition of Ready Seafoods (Sept. 20)

Yarmouth entrepreneur leads effort to keep Fork Food Lab open (Sept. 6)

Maibec sells Masardis, St. Pamphile mills to another Quebec company (Aug. 8): Buyer was Groupe Lebel of Riviere-du-Loup, Quebec. 

Portland-based WPXT-TV to be acquired by Hearst (July 31): Seller was CW Television Network.

Investor group with a range of business interests buys Maine Media Collective's assets (June 15): Buyer was State 23 Media LLC, an investor group.

Big week for Rumford: Pending sale of paper mill, $990K CDBG grant, two Opportunity Zones (May 29): Catalyst Paper sold to ND Paper LLC

Old Town engineering firm Sewall Co. sold to private investment firm (May 4): Buyer was Treadwell Franklin Infrastructure Capital LLC 

Brunswick maker of all-weather speakers merges with Michigan company (May 2): Ann Arbor, Mich.-based buyer was Leon Speakers

Boyne Resorts completes purchase of Sunday River, Sugarloaf (May 10)

Bidding war erupts for Maine Water Co.'s parent firm (April 30): Connecticut Water Service Inc.

Vets First Choice to merge with spinoff of Fortune 500 company (April 28): Deal was with Henry Schein Inc. 

Massachusetts lender acquires Cumberland County Mortgage (Feb. 5): Buyer was HarborOne Bank of Brockton, Mass.

Rhode Island company buys Boothbay Harbor Shipyard (Jan. 11): Buyer was Bristol Marine

CVS to acquire Apothecary By Design (Jan. 8)

Maine businesses that bought other companies (including some in Maine):

WEX to acquire Noventis in strategic move to expand its corporate payments reach (Oct. 23)

CES acquires Florida engineering firm (Sept. 25)

Bangor Publishing acquires Pulse Marketing Agency (Sept. 7)

Westbrook accounting startup makes third acquisition, signals more to come (Aug. 15): Buys Howgate & Harmon of South Portland

Hammond Lumber expands its reach (July 9): Buys EBS Building Supplies, which has 10 Maine stores.

Tyler Technologies acquires Portland cybersecurity firm (May 2): Sage Data Security LLC

Twin Rivers Paper to buy Arkansas paper mill (April 5): Deal was for a Mondi Group mill in Pine Bluff, Ark.

Reade Brower to acquire 50% ownership of The Portland Phoenix (April 4)

Reade Brower to own all Maine dailies except BDN (March 26): Deal was for the Times Record, Journal Tribune and other community papers. Brower also acquired the weekly newspapers The Ellsworth American and Mount Desert Islander. (July 25).

Acquisition expands Auburn company's footprint into Rhode Island (March 13): Auburn-based Connectivity Point Design & Installation LLC bought assets of Computer Telephone Inc. in Warwick, R.I.

Hancock Lumber acquires Mainely Trusses, now employs 522 at 15 locations (Feb. 7)

Diversified Communications acquires U.K. company (Feb. 1): Deal was for Tent Exhibitions Ltd. of London.

Portland's PRC Industrial Supply buys Belgrade conveyor company (Jan. 4): Deal was for ACE Conveyor Services of Belgrade.