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Belgian firm has high hopes for ‘X-factor’ acquisition

Written by News Desk
Wednesday, 13 February 2008
Belgian 3D inspection specialist, Metris, says it expects major revenue growth for one of the UK’s leading manufacturers of real-time, high resolution X-ray inspection systems following its £10 million acquisition. The X-Tek Group in Hertfordshire will have access to Metris’ expansive worldwide sales force which, according to the firm, should provide enough opportunity for a 20-30 per centage growth on its revenues – in line with Metris’ own organic growth, which totalled £7 million in 2007. The agreement provides for a further contingent consideration of £2 million that is dependent on future achievement of specific R & D targets. X-Tek employs 75 staff at its Tring headquarters and its customer support facilities in San Jose and Boston in the US as well as China and Malaysia. The purchase expands Metris’ product offering, bringing in X-Tek’s X-ray and Computer Tomography (CT) technologies, and also falls in line with its strategy of looking to strengthen its product portfolio with upcoming technologies and to expand its market share. “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 micro metrology market,” said Bart Van Coppenolle, Metris president and CEO. “In addition to the mechanical technology we have in our portfolio since the LK and Coord3 acquisitions, we now add a very strategic technology: Industrial CT scanning.” The deal should also provide X-Tek with the ability to stay on top of new technological breakthroughs. Roger Hadland, CEO of X-Tek, said: “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.” Founded in 1986, X-Tek manufactures X-ray and CT inspection systems, creating high quality images with magnification factors up to over 6000, which are mainly used for inspection of electronics such as printed circuit boards. CT systems are deployed to create 3D images to verify complex internal structures of parts in a non-destructive way. X-Tek has an installed base of over 1300 systems in a wide range of industries, including electronics, automotive and aerospace. Metris is headquartered in Leuven and has production and development centres in the UK, Italy, US, China, India and Bulgaria. Its 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. While the X-ray and industrial CT scanning technology offerings from X-Tek will help extend Metris’ measurement capabilities, from laser scanner surface measurements to inspection of complex internal structures, it also plans to direct X-Tek technology to new applications such as engine and turbine blade inspection. Set as favorite Bookmark Email This Hits: 518 Trackback(0) TrackBack URI for this entry Comments (0) Subscribe to this comment's feed Show/Hide comments Write comment Show/Hide comment form This content has been locked. You can no longer post any comment.