"Forza is a highly strategic technology acquisition for AMETEK," said David A. Zapico, AMETEK Chairman and CEO. "Customers rely on Forza's leading-edge design capability to support their advanced sensor development projects. Forza also provides our Vision Research business with custom sensor design and production capability, allowing for accelerated development of next generation sensor technology for use across our market leading, high-speed cameras."
Forza has annual sales of approximately $20m and was acquired for approximately $40m.
AMETEK is a global manufacturer of electronic instruments and electromechanical devices with annualized sales of approximately $4.8b. The common stock of AMETEK is a component of the S&P 500 Index.
Forza joins AMETEK as part of its Electronic Instruments Group (EIG) - a leader in advanced analytical, monitoring, testing, calibrating and display instruments with annualized sales of $3.0b.
Key application space: industrial products.. Machine Vision in particular
ReplyDeleteWithout knowing any details, 20m in annual sales, 40m aqusition price seems a bit low.
ReplyDeleteThe only sensor worth mentioning would be the earlier RED digital cinema sensors, with the later ones being more and more in hands of the RED, than the supplier. Losing such big customer, and no foreseeable customers they are likely on edge of closing the business. Selling while they can, when they loose competitiveness.
Delete"the only sensor worth mentioning"... really? I have to say, sometimes people say the darndest things on this forum. To the best of my knowledge, Forza has produced leading edge sensors for a multitude of customers over the years up to the present, and they are one of the top 3 custom sensor design houses on the planet. The only thing they did poorly is PR, but maybe that is because they did not need to. All in all, I too am a bit surprised by the announced acquisition price, but congratulations to Barmak, Dan, Shawn, and the rest of the crew, and I hope Ametek does not send someone to Pasadena to run the business!
DeleteEric, apologies for such a post, I was not meant to be that bad on anybody at all.
DeleteThe problem may lay in the fact that being just a design house, without having an option to stand behind their designs and to get public acknowledgement - their business might not seem such great. I know such a situation even myself - we can not tell which products we have designed. The RED sensor which I pointed out - whose package was seen widely through their online ad campaign - having the same part in my hand, it could be easily matched and its also sort of a public secret by now. Too bad they cant tell more about what they took into successful mass production stage.
Indeed, we had a similar problem at Photobit Technology Corp (a subsidiary of Photobit) where we did a lot of custom designs but could only talk about a few. When you acquire a company like this, you are acquiring a few customers, IP and know-how, and mostly engineers (capability). You could say the price was like $1M/engineer. One exception was the Cypress acquisition of Fill Factory, which I think was $100M. How TJ Rogers came to that valuation remains a mystery to me to this day, but great for the FF folks.
DeleteHi Eric, Just out of curiosity, who are the other two "of the top 3 custom sensor design houses"? Thanks!
DeleteWell, this always becomes a bit problematic since I am not sure I am fully up to date, but I would probably go with Caeleste and Brookman. Certainly Alexima/Luxima has done great work but I believe they are still quite small. Gigajot is too small, too young, and too niche to make my own list. If I have missed some company with more than 20 employees doing a lot of unsung work, feel free to speak up.
DeleteThanks a lot for sharing this!
DeletePyxalis... I've recently heard really great things about them.
ReplyDelete