Eaton to Buy Italy's COL Group for €810M, Bulking Up European Grid Gear

Eaton agreed Friday to acquire COL Group, an Italian medium-voltage power-distribution group, from Oaktree's Power Opportunities strategy for €810 million in enterprise value. The deal adds roughly 400 employees and four Italian factories to Eaton's European platform, aimed squarely at the data-center and utility demand wave.

Eaton signed an agreement Friday to buy COL Group, an Italian maker of medium-voltage electrical distribution equipment, from Oaktree Capital Management's Power Opportunities strategy for an enterprise value of €810 million, or about $923 million. The acquisition hands Eaton roughly 400 employees and four Italian manufacturing sites at a moment when European data-center and utility buildouts are straining the continent's grid-equipment supply chain.

The deal is expected to close in the first quarter of 2027, subject to customary closing conditions and regulatory approvals. Eaton announced the agreement Friday morning, with the wire carried at 06:45 AM EDT.

The deal

COL Group is a medium-voltage specialist: it builds SF6-free switchgear, grid-automation technology, and modular power systems, with what Eaton describes as more than a century of experience in electrical power distribution. The company's four facilities sit in Turin, Milan, Bergamo, and Catania, giving Eaton an immediate manufacturing footprint across northern and southern Italy.

For Eaton, the purchase is a capacity play. The Dublin-based power management company said the acquisition expands its European power-distribution capabilities and manufacturing footprint, sharpening its ability to serve rising customer demand in data-center and utility markets.

Oaktree's Power Opportunities strategy is the seller. Neither side disclosed COL Group's net debt, so the €810 million figure is enterprise value — not equity value — and no equity cheque size was published.

"COL Group brings complementary technologies, manufacturing capabilities and engineering expertise that will further strengthen Eaton's European power distribution platform," said Omar Zaire, Eaton's president for the EMEA region and the company's corporate and electrical sector, in Friday's announcement. "The acquisition will enhance our ability to support utility and data center customers' increasing need for resilient, sustainable power infrastructure and integrated grid-to-chip power solutions."

The demand case

The strategic logic is straightforward: utilities across Europe are upgrading aging distribution networks while hyperscalers keep adding data-center capacity, and both trends run through medium-voltage gear — the transformers, switchgear, and automation that sit between the transmission grid and the end customer.

SF6-free switchgear is the notable line in COL Group's product list. Sulfur hexafluoride, the traditional insulating gas in high-voltage equipment, is an extremely potent greenhouse gas, and European regulators have been tightening rules around its use — making greener switchgear a selling point, not just a compliance box.

The modular power systems business fits the same trend from a different direction: prefabricated, skid-mounted electrical systems that data-center builders can deploy faster than site-built alternatives, a format that has become standard in large-scale AI and cloud campuses.

The valuation arithmetic

COL Group has forecast €250 million in sales for 2027. Against the €810 million enterprise value, that works out to roughly 3.2 times forward sales — simple division of the two disclosed figures, not a multiple either company stated or that any analyst published.

What the numbers don't reveal is profitability. Neither Eaton nor the reporting around the deal disclosed COL Group's earnings, margins, or debt, so there is no EV-to-EBITDA multiple to compute and no way to judge how rich the price is against cash flow. The sales multiple is the only valuation math available.

For context, Eaton itself did $27.4 billion in revenue in 2025 and serves customers in 180 countries, making COL Group a bolt-on by revenue — roughly one percent of Eaton's scale — but a meaningful one in the European medium-voltage segment where Eaton has been building out. The company also reiterated Friday its 2026 adjusted earnings guidance of $13.40 to $13.60 per share.

The deal now heads into the regulatory queue, with closing targeted for the first quarter of 2027. Which jurisdictions must sign off was not disclosed.