Downtown St. Paul is about to become home to a national business that few know about, which plans to move this spring into the business-hungry loop's emerging entrepreneurial center, Osborn370.
And city planners, ironically, can thank Ecolab, a longtime downtown corporate giant, for the addition.
Last fall, Ecolab sold its commercial kitchen appliance-repair business to Audax Group, a huge private equity firm that likes to buy corporate orphans and other businesses, invest in growth, and sell them at a big profit after several years.
What was this year renamed Smart Care, is a growing 900-employee firm that should post revenue approaching $200 million this year.
CEO Bill Emory, who ran the business for Ecolab, believes an independent Smart Care can hit $500 million in annual revenue within five years.
That's a big enterprise compared to most St. Paul-based businesses. Not so much by Ecolab standards. And commercial appliance repair, albeit profitable, was less of a fit as Ecolab diversified in other directions.
Ecolab, partly through big acquisitions in recent years, has become a $13 billion company focused on commercial-building sanitation, water and energy businesses.
The Audax sale has freed Smart Care to find its own way as an independent business that no longer has to compete for growth capital against larger, more popular siblings within Ecolab.