Key points
- Samsung Electronics is in talks to buy Modine, a maker of data center cooling systems
- Modine shares rose about 30% in after-hours trading after the report
- Modine's data center sales nearly doubled last quarter, to $439.7 million
Samsung Electronics is in talks to acquire Modine (MOD), a maker of cooling systems for data centers, Bloomberg reported on Thursday. A deal could come together as soon as the coming weeks, according to the report. Reuters said it couldn't immediately verify the report.
Modine shares closed at $106.10 on Thursday, down 0.5%, before the report came out at 6:43 p.m. ET. They traded at $137.45 at 7:23 p.m. ET, up about 30% from the close. At the closing price, Modine was worth about $5.6 billion. Neither company has announced a deal.
Modine's data center sales nearly doubled
Modine completed the spin-off of its Performance Technologies business on Oct. 1, according to an SEC filing. That business, which made cooling technology for vehicles and industrial equipment, combined with Gentherm (THRM). What's left at Modine is its Data Centers and Commercial HVAC segments.
Gentherm also acquired the Modine brand and trademarks in that deal, according to Modine's quarterly report, and the spun-off business still sells under the Modine name. The company in talks with Samsung has asked shareholders to approve changing its name to Modexus Solutions at a special meeting on Friday, Nov. 13. Its stock would keep trading under the ticker MOD.
In the quarter that ended Sept. 30, Data Centers sales rose 95% from a year earlier to $439.7 million, mostly from higher sales to hyperscale customers in North America, Modine said on Nov. 3. Commercial HVAC sales rose 23% to $285.5 million. CEO Neil Brinker pointed to "record orders and backlog in our Data Centers segment."
The growth has cost money. Gross margin in Data Centers fell to 19.7%, down 4.7 percentage points from a year earlier, because of higher material, component and tariff costs. Free cash flow for the six months through September was negative $145.6 million, as Modine spent on new production capacity and on inventory for data center customers.
Modine expects revenue from its continuing businesses to rise 50% to 55% in the fiscal year that ends in March, with adjusted EBITDA of $470 million to $500 million. Brinker said the company would share longer-term targets at an investor day on Nov. 18.
We compared Modine with Vertiv and nVent in August. At the time, Modine had agreed to reserve capacity to supply more than $4 billion of its Airedale cooling products to a single customer from 2027 through 2029, and that customer paid $165 million upfront. Larger rival Vertiv (VRT) said in October that its orders more than doubled in the third quarter.
Samsung already owns a cooling company
Samsung completed its acquisition of FlaktGroup, a German HVAC company, in November 2025, according to a Samsung press release. The deal was valued at about $1.7 billion, The Korea Economic Daily reported when Samsung agreed to it in May 2025.
Samsung runs FlaktGroup as an independent subsidiary and said it planned to expand into AI data centers. "This marks a strategic move for Samsung, aimed at leading the global HVAC and data center markets," said TM Roh, who was then acting head of Samsung's Device eXperience division.
