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[July 2002]
Philips to Sell its X-ray Analytical Business
Royal Philips Electronics (Amsterdam, Holland) reached a preliminary agreement on 17 July 2002 to sell its X-ray analytical business to Spectris (Egham, Surrey, England) for a total consideration of 150 million euro. Completion of the transaction, which is subject to customary consultation procedures with trade unions and works councils and clearance by the competition authorities, is expected to take place later this year.Philips Analytical is just one of 27 businesses in the group that are being prepared for divestment or merger - a move which is expected to generate an estimated 1 billion euro.
Hans Nilsson, Chief Executive of Spectris, commented: "This acquisition is in line with our strategy. Philips Analytical's market-leading x-ray based technologies complement our existing instrumentation businesses and enable us to enter new markets such as materials research and life sciences".
With its headquarters in Almelo in Holland, Philips Analytical's X-ray activities employ approximately 850 people in development, production, sales, service and technical support operations around the world. The business had sales in 2001 of 159 million euro. All employees and the existing management team of the business will transfer to Spectris.
The opto-acoustic activities (Boston, USA) and the ellipsometry activities (Almelo, Holland and Munich, Germany) will not be part of this transaction.
Spectris develops and markets precision instrumentation and controls via its 16 business units around the world. The company employs 5,000 people and had annual sales of £540 million in 2001.
ENDS