Watts Water Technologies Inc.
WTSHIGH VELOCITYFILING INTENSITYWatts Water Technologies Inc. reads as an High Velocity (composite 70/100); Consistent Strategic Buyer deploying $667M across 0 disclosed transactions, up 2644% vs the prior cycle · primary market Waste, ranked #7 on disclosed spend.
Lens
Disclosed M&A capital (2023–2025)
$667M
vs $24M in 2020–2022
Disclosed transactions
N/A
3/3 active fiscal years in window
Buyer archetype
Consistent Strategic Buyer
Meaningful spend appears across repeat years.
Composite score
70
High Velocity dominates · Filing Intensity
Watts Water Technologies (WTS) is a public-company acquirer in industrial - machinery with $1.6B of disclosed M&A spend across 12 acquisitions over 18 active years. Strategy mix is led by Geographic Expansion (44%), Bolt On (22%), Technology Acquisition (15%). Current capacity: $375M cash, $198M total debt, -0.3x net leverage (underlevered). Has $1.8B of incremental debt capacity to a 3.0x IG threshold and $3.0B to the 5.0x HY transition. Disclosed median deal size sits at $136M.
- “We intend to generate incremental growth by targeting select acquisitions both in our core markets and in new complementary markets.”- 10-K FY2025
- “We intend to continue to generate incremental growth by targeting selected acquisitions, both in our core markets as well as new complementary markets. We have completed 11 acquisitions in the last decade. Our acquisition strategy focuses”- 10-K FY2018
- “We have completed 12 acquisitions in the last decade.”- 10-K FY2019
- ▸Entry into adjacent geographies via platform acquisitions
- ▸Bolt-ons into existing geography for route density
- ▸Room for a $3.0B debt-funded acquisition before HY 5.0x.
Behavioral posture, nine reads.
Each index scores the issuer 0–100 against an EDGAR-anchored definition. Scores ≥ threshold elevate the issuer into the index's constituent set; the dominant index drives the masthead label.
Active Acquirer
Companies actively deploying disclosed capital into M&A
- $1.6B disclosed buyer spend
Buyer Cadence
Buyer-side companies with recent filing activity
- Filed within 33d
- 13 acquisition-history signals
- 248 8-Ks
Target Probability
Issuers showing target-side patterns from filings
- 64 activism filings
Spin/Carve
Issuers showing spin-off, carve-out, or sum-of-parts posture
- 64 activism filings
Pressure Watch
Issuers facing activism, governance, or control pressure
- 64 activism filings
- Latest activism 6.1y ago; heavily discounted
Distress Watch
Issuers showing financial-distress filing patterns
- 64 activism filings
Restatement Risk
Issuers with accounting-integrity flags from filings
Capital Velocity
DominantIssuers with the highest filing-activity intensity
- 248 8-Ks
- 5 form types
Quiet Power
Large issuers with low signal volume and clean disclosure cadence
- Enterprise value $9.7B
- 10-Q 33d ago
- 2 active signals
Capital cadence.
Ten-year disclosed M&A activity. Bars show spend ($MM); ticks show recorded transaction count. Disclosure tier annotated where v6 audited corpus carries an entry.
Disclosed spend $MM Disclosed transactions (right axis)Peak spend year: $313M · Peak count: 3
| FY | Disclosed buys | Disclosed spend | Avg ticket | Audited tier |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | N/A | $257M | N/A | N/A |
| 2024 | N/A | $96M | N/A | N/A |
| 2023 | N/A | $313M | N/A | N/A |
| 2022 | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| 2021 | N/A | $9M | N/A | N/A |
| 2020 | 2 | $15M | $8M | N/A |
Strategy posture.
The buyer's playbook in terms of strategic archetype: what each disclosed move says about how they're deploying capital.
Archetype mix
- Geographic Expansion20%
- Bolt On20%
- Technology Acquisition20%
- Tuck In20%
- Horizontal Consolidation20%
Strategy keywords
Terms recurring across recent 10-K acquisition disclosures.
- geographic_expansion
- bolt_on
- technology_acquisition
- tuck_in
- platform
- horizontal_consolidation
- talent_acquisition
Filing language.
Direct excerpts from acquisition disclosures and strategy sections: the verbs the buyer chose, in the filings they signed.
“We target businesses that will provide us with one or more of the following: an entry into new markets and/or new geographies, improved channel access, unique and/or proprietary technologies, advanced production capabilities or complementary solution offerings.”
“We intend to continue to generate incremental growth by targeting selected acquisitions, both in our core markets as well as new complementary markets. We have completed 11 acquisitions in the last decade. Our acquisition strategy focuses”
“Our acquisition strategy focuses on businesses that manufacture preferred brand name products that address our themes of safety and regulation, energy efficiency and water conservation.”
“Our acquisition strategy focuses on businesses that promote our key macro themes around safety & regulation, energy efficiency and water conservation.”
“We intend to generate incremental growth by targeting select acquisitions both in our core markets and in new complementary markets.”
Market context.
Where this issuer sits inside its SE-Cluster rollup wedge, with disclosed-spend rank plus trading comparables against the public peer set.
Primary market
Waste
- Market spend (2023–2025)
- $24.4B
- Market spend (2020–2022)
- $21.3B
- Recent vs prior
- +15%
- Issuer rank in market
- #7 of 38
- Share of market capital
- 2.6%
Valuation positioning
WTS trades at a +1.9-turn premium to the Waste peer median of 15.6×.
- EV / Revenue
- 3.8×
- Net debt / EBITDA
- -0.3×
- Peer median EV / EBITDA
- 15.6×
Trading comparables
FMP market data · 2026-05-10
| Company | EV / EBITDA | EV / Rev | Net debt / EBITDA | Revenue | M&A 2023–2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Ecolab Inc.ECL | 24.5× | 4.9× | 2.3× | $16.5B | $2.1B |
Watts Water Technologies Inc.WTS | 17.5× | 3.8× | -0.3× | $2.6B | $667M |
Veralto CorpVLTO | 16.5× | 4.0× | 0.9× | $5.6B | $395M |
Xylem Inc.XYL | 15.6× | 3.1× | 0.6× | $9.1B | $832M |
Pentair plcPNR | 15.0× | 3.4× | 2.0× | $4.2B | $401M |
| 14.9× | 2.2× | 1.4× | $4.7B | $372M |
Trading multiples from FMP market data; disclosed M&A spend from the SE-Cluster EDGAR 10-K corpus. Peer set = top disclosed buyers in Waste. Bars scaled to the highest EV/EBITDA in the set.
Target landscape.
Public-issuer targets that fit this buyer's archetype and target categories from filing-derived signal. Scores reflect cross-signal fit; reasons cite the EDGAR-anchored facts that drove the match.
No qualifying public-issuer targets surfaced from the current signal mix.
Stated target categories
No target categories enumerated in the audited corpus for this issuer.
Filing activity & signal stream.
Filing cadence and event-driven signals visible on EDGAR. The signal stream below is curated from restatement / spin-carve / activism categories, providing context for any near-term call.
Filing cadence
- 10-K (annual)292026-02-23
- 10-Q (quarterly)982026-05-07
- 8-K (event)2482026-05-06
- Proxy / DEF 14A432026-04-01
- Activism (13D / DFAN / PREC)642020-04-22
Signals on file
- elevated
Activism on file
2020-04-2264 activist filings on file (13D, DFAN14A, PREC14A series).
- info
Signal
Disclosed acquisition spend
- info
Signal
10-K strategy themes
Audited corpus.
No audited record on file for this CIK in the current v6 corpus.
This issuer has not been extracted into the v6 audited acquirer corpus yet. The brief above pulls from ranking-level aggregates and issuer-index signal only.