StockerYale to acquire Navitar for $25.5 million

StockerYale, a provider of photonics-based products, has reached an agreement in principle to acquire Navitar (Rochester, NY), in a transaction valued at approximately $25.5 million.

Nov. 15, 2004

2 min read

SALEM, NH—StockerYale, a provider of photonics-based products, has reached an agreement in principle to acquire Navitar (Rochester, NY), in a transaction valued at approximately $25.5 million. Navitar is a manufacturer and supplier of superior quality optical lens systems and complete customized optical solutions for the machine-vision and biomedical diagnostics industries.The acquisition is currently anticipated to close before the end of the fourth quarter of 2004.

Through this transaction, StockerYale is expected to achieve combined revenues of $43 million for 2004. The business combination will also have an immediate positive impact on earnings and cash flow. In addition, StockerYale has identified significant opportunities for product development, marketing, and sales synergies, expanding the scope of its target markets.

"This acquisition represents a tremendous opportunity for StockerYale," said Mark Blodgett, StockerYale CEO. "It combines our strong position in illumination components with Navitar's leading portfolio of lens systems. The combined company will offer one of the broadest product offerings to machine vision OEMs, as well as to the biomedical and defense markets."

StockerYale's R&D efforts in lasers, LEDs, and fiberoptic components, when combined with Navitar's product-development initiatives, should accelerate new product innovations and increase the speed of new inspection solutions to the market, he added. In addition, the deal will position StockerYale in the rapidly growing market for LCD and DLP projectors, where Navitar is a leading supplier of aftermarket projector lenses.

"Increasingly, customers are requiring cost-effective solutions integrating illumination components and optical lenses to detect defects or perform critical measurements," Blodgett said. "Given that the machine-vision industry has historically been highly fragmented, the combined company will become one of the leading value-added subsystem suppliers to this growing market."