Aurora, Illinois-based Rensa makes tight-tolerance air filters for data centers, power generation, healthcare and semiconductor manufacturing. Audax Private Equity has sold Rensa Filtration to AEA Investors and British Columbia Investment Management Corporation, four years after first investing in the company. Audax will keep a minority stake alongside management.
No financial terms were disclosed. Founded by CEO Brandon Ost, Rensa manufactures, distributes and services consumable, high-purity air filters. The company says it is one of the largest US-based privately held filtration businesses.
Its highly engineered, tight-tolerance filters are used in critical environments including data centers, power generation, food processing, healthcare and life sciences, semiconductor manufacturing and other cleanrooms. Since Audax invested in August 2022, Rensa has opened two de novo manufacturing facilities in Nevada and Illinois and built out its service locations into a national footprint. It also completed 10 acquisitions that added new technology, took it into new end markets and geographies, and gave it exposure across the value chain.
Joe Rogers, a partner at Audax, said Rensa provides a case study in how the firm seeks to build strategic assets. The sale marks the eighth realization announced or completed by Audax's Flagship strategy in 2026 and the 10th exit across its private equity platform in the past 12 months. Together, that sale activity represents about $15 billion in total transaction value.
Lincoln International and Baird were financial advisers to Audax, and Ropes & Gray served as legal counsel.
Source: PE Hub · Summarized by HeadlinesBriefing