Blocked in an attempt at a record US$90 billion takeover, Honeywell International Inc is going back to its traditional pursuit of smaller deals with a US$1.5 billion purchase of warehouse automation company Intelligrated.
The acquisition will help Honeywell tap into fast growth for fulfillment centers spurred by online commerce, the company said in a statement on Friday.
Intelligrated, which belongs to a company backed by UK buyout firm Permira, is expected to generate sales of US$900 million for this year after increasing revenue by an annual average of 13 percent in the past three years, Honeywell said.
The maker of building systems, aerospace components and refinery equipment scrapped an offer for United Technologies Corp, after United Technologies rebuffed the proposal and customers including planemaker Airbus Group SE opposed it.
The Intelligrated deal “does fit in a little better historically with their mode of operation. They tend to do more deals in this size range than trying to do a mega-deal,” Edward Jones analyst Jeff Windau aid in a telephone interview. “The mega-deal is flashy, but sometimes draws a lot of questions.”
Intelligrated designs, manufactures and installs warehouse automation systems and fits with Honeywell’s scanning and mobility business, which makes hand-held computers used by warehouse operators.
“E-commerce continues to grow at an unprecedented rate and customer demands for faster delivery times have created a need for warehouse, logistics and fulfillment solutions that can increase productivity and lower costs for our customers,” Alex Ismail, chief of Honeywell’s automation and control solutions unit, said in the statement.
The price is 12 times Intelligrated’s annual earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization. Intelligrated, based in Mason, Ohio, employs more than 3,100 people and provides service to 30 of the top 50 retailers, Honeywell said.
The Intelligrated transaction is expected to close by the end of the third quarter.
Honeywell’s sales fell 4.3 percent last year to US$38.6 billion, dragged down by a drop in oil and gas investment. This year, Honeywell expects sales of as much as US$40.9 billion.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the