Stratasys Ltd, a leading maker of 3D printers, is buying another 3D printer manufacturer, MakerBot Industries, for US$403 million in stock.
Stratasys said on Wednesday the acquisition will enable it to offer affordable desktop 3D printers. MakerBot, whose machines are priced between US$2,000 and US$3,000 and are aimed at the “prosumer” market, sells direct to buyers through its Web site.
By contrast, Stratasys makes machines priced US$10,000 to US$600,000, mostly to industrial clients through resellers.
MakerBot’s owners will receive 4.76 million newly issued Stratasys shares and are eligible for another 2.38 million through the end of next year if certain performance targets are met. That could raise the purchase price by about US$201 million based on Wednesday’s closing stock price.
The merger is expected to be completed in the third quarter of this year.
Stratasys is based in Eden Prairie, Minnesota, and Rehovot, Israel. Its shares rose US$2.40, or 2.8 percent, to US$87 in after-hours trading. New York-based MakerBot is privately held.
MakerBot will keep its name, products and strategy as a unit of Stratasys.
Analysts of the 3D printing market have said the industry has the potential to revolutionize manufacturing, since the printers are able to make everything from chocolate molds and mouth braces to gun parts by laying down layer upon layer of plastic, metal or other materials.
The market is expected to double by 2016 from a base of about US$3 billion this year, Stratasys CEO David Reis said. Both companies are posting strong revenue gains that should outpace the overall industry, he said.
“The potential in this market is huge,” Reis said.
“Even though both of our companies have had a lot of aggressive growth, we’re still at the beginning,” MakerBot CEO Bre Pettis said.
Both companies plan to hire more employees later this year to boost their expansions, Reis said.
In the first quarter through March, Stratasys’ revenue more than doubled to US$97.2 million from US$45 million a year ago. MakerBot had first-quarter revenue of US$11.5 million, compared with US$15.7 million for all of last year.
HORMUZ ISSUE: The US president said he expected crude prices to drop at the end of the war, which he called a ‘minor excursion’ that could continue ‘for a little while’ The United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Kuwait started reducing oil production, as the near-closure of the crucial Strait of Hormuz ripples through energy markets and affects global supply. Abu Dhabi National Oil Co (ADNOC) is “managing offshore production levels to address storage requirements,” the company said in a statement, without giving details. Kuwait Petroleum Corp said it was lowering production at its oil fields and refineries after “Iranian threats against safe passage of ships through the Strait of Hormuz.” The war in the Middle East has all but closed Hormuz, the narrow waterway linking the Persian Gulf to the open seas,
Nanya Technology Corp (南亞科技) yesterday said the DRAM supply crunch could extend through 2028, as the artificial intelligence (AI) boom has led the world’s major memory makers to dramatically reduce production of standard DRAM and allocate a significant portion of their capacity for high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips. The most severe supply constraints would stretch to the first half of next year due to “very limited” increases in new DRAM capacity worldwide, Nanya Technology president Lee Pei-ing (李培瑛) told a news briefing. The company plans to increase monthly 12-inch wafer capacity to 20,000 in the first half of 2028 after a
Taiwan has enough crude oil reserves for more than 100 days and sufficient natural gas reserves for more than 11 days, both above the regulatory safety requirement, Minister of Economic Affairs Kung Ming-hsin (龔明鑫) said yesterday, adding that the government would prioritize domestic price stability as conflicts in the Middle East continue. Overall, energy supply for this month is secure, and the government is continuing efforts to ensure sufficient supply for next month, Kung told reporters after meeting with representatives from business groups at the ministry in Taipei. The ministry has been holding daily cross-ministry meetings at the Executive Yuan to ensure
RATIONING: The proposal would give the Trump administration ample leverage to negotiate investments in the US as it decides how many chips to give each country US officials are debating a new regulatory framework for exporting artificial intelligence (AI) chips and are considering requiring foreign nations to invest in US AI data centers or security guarantees as a condition for granting exports of 200,000 chips or more, according to a document seen by Reuters. The rules are not yet final and could change. They would be the first attempt to regulate the flow of AI chips to US allies and partners since US President Donald Trump’s administration said it rescinded its predecessor’s so-called AI diffusion rules. Those rules sought to keep a significant amount of AI
RSS