Our timeline: the choice of our way

The start of UNICAP’s way began with the fight against outdated water supply standards in the territory of the former USSR, which repeatedly increased the cost of projects and did not provide the necessary water quality.

Changing the perception of specialists brought up by the Soviet school was a complex and time-consuming task that required considerable time.

Raising this issue and reflecting its significance, we not only solve a global problem, but also bring business indicators of all industries to a new level.

We were the initiators of the creation of a series of TV news releases and publications in the media, thanks to which we managed to draw public attention to the problems of water treatment and lay the foundation for further actions.
We needed to change public perceptions about the need for quality water and the availability of water resources, as well as their impact on improving people’s lives and health.

Together with National Technical universities, a training program for engineers on modern water treatment technologies was developed and implemented. Currently, a significant number of qualified specialists have been trained under this program.

We have held training seminars with the heads of state organizations in Italy, France, Germany, Poland, the USA, Spain in order to familiarize ourselves with the corporate, managerial and technical level of our Western colleagues. The leaders of the water utilities of the CIS countries have visited the Culligan plant in the USA. Senior officials have been familiarized with international standards for water treatment, with modern equipment and technologies.

UNICAP has taken the expansion of Culligan in the European market. In order to increase the market value of Culligan in 2012, UNICAP attracted the British investment company United Investment Corporation Ltd. It was announced at the International Investment Forum.

A joint company Culligan was established to launch the assembly production of Culligan in Zaslavl. It was established as a member of the international Culligan group of companies.

The results of our work were highly appreciated, and Culligan became an official partner of the National Olympic Committee.

In 2015, UNCICAP and Culligan International established Culligan Eurasia on the principles of parity partnership (49% / 51%). This company became a partner of the U.S.-Russia Business Council. (USRBC, based in Washington, D.C., with an office in Moscow, is the premier U.S.-based trade association representing the interests of its U.S. and Russian member companies on commercial matters. USRBC includes the largest international Fortune Global 500 companies).

UNICAP has organized a number of international forums in New York and London with the aim of developing the implementation of national Clean Water programs with the states of the Eurasian space. A marketing study of the housing and communal services market was carried out and negotiations were held with the governments of Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and a number of other regions.

The result of the work was the creation of a financial, economic and business model for the development of Culligan: special technology of water treatment and water purification were developed; design, manufacture, supply, installation, and maintenance of equipment in the territory of the Eurasian space were completed; a pool of projects was formed for five years in advance.

UNICAP has organized a number of international forums in major global financial centers with the goal of declaring participation in the implementation of national Clean Water projects and programs and concluding relevant memoranda.

By the end of 2016, implementing the Development Program in the field of strategic marketing, GR and corporate culture, as well as supervising the financial and economic unit as part of an international team, UNICAP managed to maximize the market value of Culligan. Thus, in 2016 the company doubled its value and was sold to Advent International for a record $ 1 billion. Significant growth of the company was achieved thanks to effective strategic marketing and administration.

In 2017, having fully implemented the Culligan Development and Sales Program, UNICAP left the project. Advent International is currently developing Culligan to launch an IPO. For the moment, Culligan controls about 40% of the global water treatment market. It has over 80 years of history, over three million customers and a dealer network in more than 90 countries.

Thanks to UNICAP, Culligan has gained extensive experience, having carried out hundreds of successful implementations in sectors such as municipal drinking water preparation, food and beverage production, energy, industry, medicine and agriculture, construction and operation of sports sites.

Participation in the development of Culligan posed completely new challenges for UNICAP: we carefully studied the investment experience of leading states and international corporations, the effectiveness and mechanisms of the models used, and realized that the PPP principle is the main trend in the investment business. The British model PFI was chosen as a conceptual solution.

Together with the UNICAP British experts who created and implemented the model in the government of John Major, we adapted the PFI concept to the specifics of Eastern Europe. This allowed us to come closer to the stage of creating an operator of transnational significance in the field of water resources management.

Housing and communal services, including water quality, were never among the key priorities of the state. Using private initiative, increasing management efficiency, introducing modern technologies is becoming an important part of the economic life of countries that have emerged on its territory.

At the moment, a project for the production of high-tech equipment for water treatment has been implemented, and it meets modern international standards. The horizontally integrated multinational corporation VODPROM is becoming a key UNICAP project in the near future. It has a presence in more than 20 regions of the Eurasian space.

The strategy of the corporation involves the occupation about 1% of the market for water treatment of the global housing and communal services, corresponding to the PFI concept. The annual turnover should exceed 1 billion euros, and the number of employees 10,000 people.

Simultaneous work on the territory of several states, in different regions, allows minimizing risks due to territorial diversification.