July 14, 2006, Göttingen, Germany--Optco Akquisitions GmbH announced that it is planning to take over LINOS AG. It will be making the shareholders an offer to buy their bearer, no par value shares in LINOS AG via a voluntary takeover bid. The consideration for this is to be a cash payment of $20 (16 Euro) per share. Optco Akquisitions GmbH is an investment company of the Qioptiq Group, designer and manufacturer of high-precision optical components and modules for military and commercial applications.
The Qioptiq Group is an investee company of funds managed by Candover, one of the leading private equity companies in Europe. Professor Gerd Litfin, CEO of LINOS AG, and his family, who together hold 40.8 per cent of LINOS AG, have informed LINOS AG that they have already reached agreement with Optco Akquisitions GmbH about the sale of the LINOS shares they own.
Litfin said: "Our objective is to expand internationally and thereby broaden our position as one of the world's leading manufacturers of sophisticated optical systems. The Qioptiq Group has a profound understanding of our business sector and we have come to know them as professional and highly motivating partners. We therefore welcome their intention to take over LINOS."
In line with the corporate principle "Photonics for Innovation", LINOS is a development partner and supplier for customers in such growth markets as lasers, optical metrology, medicine, biotechnology and semiconductors. The company was established in a management buy-out in 1996, has acquired and integrated various photonics companies--most recently Rodenstock Präzisionsoptik in Munich. 750 highly qualified staff are employed in the Group, which produces at three locations in Germany as well as at a plant in Poland. LINOS has sales companies of its own in the USA, Great Britain and France, which are important export countries.
Qioptiq--formerly the High Tech Optics division of Thales--is an international leader in the design and manufacture of high-precision optical components and modules for military and commercial applications. Qioptiq has its core operations in the UK and Singapore as well as other manufacturing and sales units in Germany, Hungary and the USA. The company employs about 1,450 people and generated revenues of $179 million (142 million Euro) in 2005.
For more information, see www.linos.de.
