Itron to buy Massachusetts company

Spokane-based Itron Inc. announced Tuesday it will acquire a Massachusetts company that designs and sells acoustic sensors for detecting underground water-line leaks.

Closely held Flow Metrix Inc. would become part of Itron in a cash-for-stock deal that is expected to close later this year. No terms of the deal have been disclosed.

Flow Metrix Inc., based in Maynard, Mass., has 13 employees and has been in business for four years, said company operations director Gayle Fitzgerald. Neither Itron nor Flow Metrix officials would disclose the firm’s 2005 revenue.

Malcolm Unsworth, senior vice president of Itron’s hardware solutions, said the acquisition would complement Itron’s sales of automatic meter reading devices to water utilities worldwide. The American Society of Civil Engineers last year estimated that nationwide six billion gallons of clean water is lost each day because of old and leaky water pipes. That comes to around $2 billion annually in losses.

Flow Metrix devices are typically linked with utilities’ meter reading units to help report leaks underground.

Unsworth said in a press release, “The combination of our fixed water network AMR technology with Flow Metrix’s leak detection capabilities will transform the way the water industry monitors the integrity of water pipelines, in the street and in the home.”