Purchase of Wahlco Hits Delay Over Financing Plan

Wahlco Environmental Systems Inc., the struggling manufacturer of industrial pollution control systems, said its prospective purchase by a Tennessee firm has been delayed for at least two weeks.

The purchaser, Thermatrix Inc., told officials of Santa Ana-based Wahlco that it needed the additional time to complete financing arrangements. A shareholder vote scheduled for today on the merger has been postponed until Jan. 12.

Wahlco announced last month that Thermatrix had agreed to acquire it for as much as $3.8 million in cash.

Wahlco, formed in 1990, saw the market for its industrial air cleaning equipment soften in recent years because of increased competition and was dealt a crippling blow this year as the ongoing Asian economic crunch cut into its overseas sales.

Wahlco’s stock, which has traded in the thinly followed over-the-counter market since being bounced from the New York Stock Exchange this summer, closed Monday at 9 cents a share, unchanged. It was trading at 25 cents a share when the Thermatrix acquisition was announced Nov. 9.

Thermatrix shares, trading in the Nasdaq market, closed Monday at $3.75, down 13 cents.