"The industrial plan for the next five years," according to Riccardo Losappio, general manager of Soilmec S.p.A. "provides for a strong focus on technological innovation, on strengthening the range of the higher-performance equipment and on increasing the structure dedicated to providing value-added services to the market. These trends will lead Soilmec to offer an increasingly complete and integrated solution, capable of maximising the return on investment of our customers wherever they operate in the world."

The transaction was completed in December 2019 for a total amount of US$2.5 million (approximately €2.24 million). As a result, and precisely 10 years after Watson sold 80 per cent of its shares, the minority shareholder, that is the Watson family, becomes the sole owner of Watson Inc. once again.

Soilmec had acquired a majority stake in Watson Inc., a Texan company operating in the manufacture of foundation rigs in early 2009, as part of a broader project for growth and diversification in foreign markets.

In the following years, Soilmec has further consolidated its direct and indirect presence in the US market and, above all, has pushed the production and marketing of high-tech products, such as cutters and large tonnage piling rigs. The positive market response has made the collaboration between Soilmec and Watson less and less strategic.

Soilmec has a widespread and deep-rooted presence in the US market, thanks to its North American branch and a distribution network made up of four dealers, uniformly spread across America and Canada. Over the past 25 years, Soilmec has sold more than 700 pieces of foundation equipment in the North American market: rigs for the execution of bored piles, but also equipment for continuous flight auger piles (CFA and CAP), soil mixing (Turbo Jet), micropiles, anchors, heavy-duty cranes and hydromills.