Mycronic Acquires Vi TECHNOLOGY

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Mycronic AB has acquired 100% of the shares in VIT S.A.S (Vi TECHNOLOGY), situated in Saint Egrève in France. The purchase price amounts to €8 million (approximately SEK 77 million) on a debt free basis and will be financed through own funds.

Mycronic is a global supplier of production equipment with high precision and high flexibility, built on advanced software. The SMT market area, within business area Assembly Solutions, offer equipment for application of solder paste, for component placement on circuit boards, storage solutions and software for efficient electronics production, which are all part of an SMT production line. Mycronic has a long-term financial goal to reach net sales of SEK 5 billion. Acquisitions are part of the growth strategy.

Vi TECHNOLOGY develops, manufactures, and sells innovative solutions for inspection during the assembly process in PCB manufacturing. The company has delivered approximately 3,000 systems to 500 customers. Customers are mainly in market segments such as automotive, aerospace, consumer, industrial, medical and telecom infrastructure. The product offering includes equipment for solder paste application inspection, SPI and equipment for automated optical inspection of circuit boards, AOI. Inspection equipment is another part of an SMT production line. Vi TECHNOLOGY has subsidiaries in Germany, Singapore and the US and have just under 100 employees. The technical competence is high; half of the employees are engineers or Ph.D.'s in Engineering.

The inspection equipment market amounted to $610 million in 2016 (Prismark, 2017). As complexity increases, demand also increases on inspection during the manufacturing process. The market is expected to have annual average growth of 5 percent.

In recent years, Vi TECHNOLOGY has made planned major investments in the technology shift to next-generation 3D inspection solutions. These investments have led to state-of-the-art SMT inspection solutions. The development costs have affected the operating result negatively. As part of the Mycronic Group, the company gets access to an extensive sales network and service organization. This broadens and strengthens Vi TECHNOLOGY’s presence on the global market. 

"Through Mycronic 4.0 we already offer advanced software that enable efficient planning, material handling, fast change-overs, intelligent component storage and automatic replenishment. The trend towards increased miniaturization puts higher requirements on the production line regarding high precision and high flexibility. With the acquisition of Vi TECHNOLOGY, we get access to advanced inspection equipment and software as well as leading expertise. The customers will get a complete and integrated production line to further increase their productivity. We will continue our investments to develop advanced solutions based on our combined expertise. The unique combination of jet printing (MY700) and integrated inspection (SPI) will provide new ways to optimize manufacturing," says Thomas Stetter, Sr VP General Manager, Assembly Solutions, at Mycronic.

"Joining forces with Mycronic will allow Vi TECHNOLOGY to serve new customers, access new markets, continue and accelerate development of innovative 3D inspection solutions. Leveraging high quality inspection data to deliver actionable process information is key to manufacturing excellence. Together, we will combine industry 4.0 initiatives and enable a full-line integrated offering. We share common values, a common passion for innovation and a common ambition to deliver state-of-the-art solutions to fulfill rapidly evolving SMT customer requirements," says François Amblard, CEO of Vi TECHNOLOGY.

The acquisition is effective immediately and consolidated in the Mycronic Group as of the acquisition date. The impact on the Group's net sales and results in 2017 will be marginal.

About Mycronic AB

Mycronic AB is a Swedish high-tech company engaged in the development, manufacture and marketing of production equipment for the electronics industry. Mycronic headquarters are located in Täby, north of Stockholm and the Group has subsidiaries in China, France, Germany, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, the Netherlands, United Kingdom and the United States. For more information, click here.