HILLSBORO, Ore., Aug. 1, 2012 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- FEI (Nasdaq:FEIC), a leading instrumentation company providing imaging and analysis systems for research and industry, today announced that it has acquired Visualization Sciences Group (VSG) of Bordeaux, France. VSG provides high-performance 3D visualization software products and tools to a range of markets, including oil & gas, geosciences, mining, life sciences, materials science and industrial inspection.
"VSG is an extension and acceleration of our strategy to provide complete imaging and visualization solutions to our customers," said Don Kania, president and CEO of FEI. "Their products and development capabilities fit well with all of our target markets, especially in our higher-growth Natural Resources and Life Sciences businesses. Our customers are expressing an increasing demand for analysis of the data our imaging systems create. At the same time, FEI intends to continue to build upon VSG's growing software business. We are impressed with VSG's solutions, including state-of-the-art 3D rendering, an open application framework, object-oriented 3D libraries and very large 3D data management capabilities. The company has a strong management team and a talented group of employees."
"Combining with FEI gives us added breadth and distribution capabilities to continue our growth," commented Jean-Bernard Cazeaux, president and CEO of VSG. "We look forward to further contributing to FEI's success in high-growth opportunities where we have a solid customer base, such as Life Sciences and Natural Resources, and to contributing our expertise to applications across all of FEI's markets."
The purchase price for the acquisition is €44.8 million or approximately $55 million. FEI funded the purchase with euros from its European operations which otherwise would be subject to U.S. taxation if repatriated. VSG had pro-forma revenue for the 12 months ended June 30, 2012 of approximately $19 million and has 88 employees. FEI expects the acquisition to have a neutral impact on GAAP earnings for the second half of 2012 and to be accretive in 2013.
About FEI
FEI (Nasdaq:FEIC) is a leading diversified scientific instruments company. It is a premier provider of electron- and ion-beam microscopes and solutions for nanoscale applications across many industries: industrial and academic materials research, life sciences, semiconductors, data storage, natural resources and more. With more than 60 years of technological innovation and leadership, FEI has set the performance standard in transmission electron microscopes (TEM), scanning electron microscopes (SEM) and DualBeams™, which combine a SEM with a focused ion beam (FIB). Headquartered in Hillsboro, Ore., USA, FEI has over 2,300 employees and sales and service operations in more than 50 countries around the world. More information can be found at: www.fei.com.
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About VSG
VSG's Avizo® and amira® 3D software applications are powerful, multifaceted tools for visualizing, manipulating, and understanding scientific and industrial data. Wherever three-dimensional data sets need to be processed, in life and materials science, geosciences, environmental science or engineering applications, Avizo and amira offer abundant state-of-the-art features within an intuitive workflow and easy-to-use graphical user interface. VSG also provides Open Inventor®, an object-oriented 3D development toolkit that allows software developers to easily integrate high-performance 3D visualization capabilities in their applications. For more information, go to: www.vsg3d.com
Safe Harbor Statement
This news release contains forward-looking statements that include statements regarding the potential benefits and expectations for the acquisition by FEI of VSG and other statements of management's beliefs, intentions or goals, including the impact on 2012 and 2013 earnings. Factors that could affect these forward-looking statements include but are not limited to: the inability of FEI to successfully integrate VSG's operations, products and technology; failure of the VSG products and technology to perform as expected and achieve anticipated results; slower-than-expected demand for 3D visualizations software from FEI's existing customer base and markets; loss of key personnel; attrition from VSG's existing customer base and failure to grow and expand in other markets. Please also refer to our Form 10-K, Forms 10-Q, Forms 8-K and other filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for additional information on these factors and other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from the forward-looking statements. FEI assumes no duty to update forward-looking statements.