Metris Acquires Industrial CT Company X-Tek

Published: Wednesday, February 20, 2008 - 22:00

(Metris: Leuven, Belgium) -- Metris has recently announced that it has signed a share purchase agreement with the shareholders of X-Tek Group for the purchase of 100 percent of the X-Tek stock. The X-Tek purchase fits in the Metris acquisition strategy to strengthen its product portfolio with upcoming technologies and to expand its market share.

The purchase agreement is subject to due diligence and certain closing conditions and provides for a maximum closing consideration of £10 million in cash and a maximum contingent consideration of £2 million that is dependent on future achievement of specific R&D targets. During 12 months ending June 2007, X-Tek realized revenues totaling £7 million.

Founded in 1986, X-Tek is a British manufacturer of X-ray and computer tomography (CT) inspection systems with headquarters in Herts, United Kingdom. X-Tek employs approximately 75 people, and has an installed base of over 1,300 systems in a wide range of industries, including electronics, automotive, and aerospace.

 “After having delivered on our medium and large-scale metrology strategy—including technology, customer base, and market channels—we now judged the time right to extend the Metris scope to the small-scale segment of the micrometrology market,” comments Bart Van Coppenolle, president and CEO of Metris. “In addition to the mechanical technology we have in portfolio since the LK and Coord3 acquisitions, we now add a very strategic technology: industrial CT scanning.”

Roger Hadland, CEO of X-Tek adds, “With Metris’ acquisition of X-Tek, we safeguard our commitment to innovate and develop new X-ray technology to provide the best solutions for the industry.”

Metris’ acquisition of X-Tek combines a technology acquisition with a customer base acquisition. With this strategic acquisition, Metris further supports its commitment to existing automotive and aerospace customers with applications such as engine and turbine blade inspection, and welcomes new customers with applications such as 3-D inspection of printed circuit boards and whole-part inspection of consumer electronics housings and other small industrial components.

About X-Tek

The X-Tek group has evolved over more than 20 years to become a market leading manufacturer of real-time, high-resolution X-ray inspection systems for quality control, failure analysis, product development, and research. X-Tek’s extensive range of technology, intellectual property, know-how, and products represent key enablers to provide diverse solutions that vary in size from a compact stand-alone system up to walk-in measurement rooms.

The X-ray systems create high-quality images with magnification factors up to more than 6,000, which are mainly used for inspection of electronics such as printed circuit boards. Computer tomography systems are deployed to create 3-D images to verify complex internal structures of parts in a nondestructive way.

Today, X-Tek has sales and service operations in the United Kingdom, the United States, China, and Malaysia, and is represented by a growing network of sales agents worldwide, altogether supporting more than 1,300 installations.

More information can also be found on www.xtekxray.com.
 
About Metris

Metris designs, develops, and markets a unique range of 3-D hardware and software inspection systems servicing design and manufacturing industries. The company’s reliable and innovative metrology solutions cover the full range of measurement volumes required by automotive and aerospace customers, in both fixed and portable configurations and with optical and touch sensors.

Metris Headquarters are based in Leuven, Belgium, with additional production and development centers in Belgium, the United Kingdom, Italy, the United States, Canada, China, India, and Bulgaria. Metris provides a worldwide network of sales and support offices located in Europe, Asia, and the the United States.

More information on Metris can be found on www.metris.com.

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