Danaher $550 million acquisition of Leica in semiconductor equipment

Diversified conglomerate Danaher announced that the company recently acquired from LM Investments, by Leica Microsystems (Leica Microsystems AG), the company has entered the semiconductor equipment and other related markets, the acquisition price of 450 million euros ($550 million).

Through the acquisition of Leica, Danaher quickly entered the micro measurement instrument (metrology), electron beam direct writing (direct-write electron-beam) (wafer inspection), wafer inspection and other tools in the field of wafer. Currently, Leica and IMS Nanofabrication GmbH are working together to develop a programmable mask non mask lithography tool.

Danaher is a sales amounted to billions of dollars of professional equipment, industrial technology, tools and components manufacturers. The company has a leading position in the field of micro metrology, pathological diagnosis and surgical microscopy. The company has approximately 3700 employees with an annual turnover of approximately EUR 530 million ($634 million). However, the company has been in a difficult position in the semiconductor equipment market, in 2005, the company disclosed that the United States of America's semiconductor equipment business, President of the division, which is part of the restructuring of the German company.

However Danaher company believes that Leica company is a company for the strategy of the company. Danaher president and CEO H. Lawrence Culp Jr said, "the two transactions in accordance with the company's strategy, Leica Microsystems enjoys high reputation in the high precision optical instrument, this will be a good complement to our existing life science business."