Power and thermal management solutions provider Delta Electronics Inc (台達電) on Saturday said it would acquire US-based Universal Instruments Corp for US$88.9 million.
Taking over the precision automation solutions company would boost Delta’s smart manufacturing and industrial automation capabilities, and generate substantial research-and-development and customer base synergies, the Taipei-based firm said.
“Universal Instruments has a remarkable track record and long-lasting customer relationships in the electronics manufacturing field, which is a key focus of Delta’s industrial automation business,” Delta chief executive officer Cheng Ping (鄭平) said.
Photo: Ann Wang, Reuters
Headquartered in Conklin, New York, Universal designs and manufactures automation and assembly equipment solutions for electronics manufacturers. The company has customers in a wide range of sectors, including automotive, computing, medical, industrial and printed circuit board surface mount placement.
It holds more than 500 patents and has since its founding in 1919 delivered nearly 30,000 systems to customers, Delta said.
After the acquisition is completed, Universal would continue to operate under its original management team, Delta said, adding that the acquisition would be finalized when the conditions stated in the purchase agreement have been met.
“By adding Universal’s precision automation machine offerings and leading technologies to our highly diversified industrial automation portfolio, we can offer customers total solutions capable of enhancing the productivity” and reducing the carbon footprint of their production lines, Cheng said.
Delta’s automation segment contributed 14 percent to the company’s total revenue in the third quarter of this year, down 8 percent from the previous quarter, but up 16 percent from the third quarter of last year to NT$11.28 billion, the company reported on Oct. 29.
The power electronics and infrastructure segments are the biggest drivers of Delta’s business, contributing 60 percent and 26 percent respectively to its revenue, company data showed.
The deal with Universal comes after Delta in November last year completed the acquisition of Trihedra Engineering Ltd, a Canadian software company focusing on supervisory control and data acquisition, as well as industrial Internet of Things applications.
Delta invested C$45 million (US$34.9 million at the current exchange rate) in Trihedra to broaden its industrial automation and system integration portfolio, it said at the time.
Capital Investment Management Corp (群益投顧) said that Delta has over the past few years been looking for merger and acquisition opportunities worldwide, a strategy that would help it gain traction in the US and European markets.
Delta’s industrial automation business is likely to benefit from trends in the US and Europe in the long run, Capital said in a note.
Taiwan’s foreign exchange reserves fell below the US$600 billion mark at the end of last month, with the central bank reporting a total of US$596.89 billion — a decline of US$8.6 billion from February — ending a three-month streak of increases. The central bank attributed the drop to a combination of factors such as outflows by foreign institutional investors, currency fluctuations and its own market interventions. “The large-scale outflows disrupted the balance of supply and demand in the foreign exchange market, prompting the central bank to intervene repeatedly by selling US dollars to stabilize the local currency,” Department of Foreign
Intel Corp is joining Elon Musk’s long-shot effort to develop semiconductors for Tesla Inc, Space Exploration Technologies Corp and xAI, marking a surprising twist in the chipmaker’s comeback bid. Intel would help the Terafab project “refactor” the technology in a chip factory, the company said on Tuesday in a post on X, Musk’s social media platform. That is a stage in the development process that typically helps make chips more powerful or reliable. The chipmaker’s shares jumped 4.2 percent to US$52.91 in New York trading on Tuesday. The Terafab project is a grand plan by Musk to eventually manufacture his own chips for
Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電) yesterday said it plans to resume operations at two coal-fired power generators for three months to boost security of electricity supply as liquefied natural gas (LNG) supply risks are running high due to the Middle East conflict. The two coal-fired power generators are at Mailiao Power Plant in Yunlin County’s Mailiao Township (麥寮). The plant, operated by Formosa Plastics Group (台塑集團), supplied electricity to Taipower’s power grid until the end of last year. Taipower’s decision came about one month after Minister of Economic Affairs Kung Ming-hsin (龔明鑫) on March 10 said that the nation had no imminent
ENERGY ISSUES: The TSIA urged the government to increase natural gas and helium reserves to reduce the impact of the Middle East war on semiconductor supply stability Chip testing and packaging service provider ASE Technology Holding Co (日月光投控) yesterday said it planned to invest more than NT$100 billion (US$3.15 billion) in building a new advanced chip testing facility in Kaohsiung to keep up with customer demand driven by the artificial intelligence (AI) boom. That would be included in the company’s capital expenditure budget next year, ASE said. There is also room to raise this year’s capital spending budget from a record-high US$7 billion estimated three months ago, it added. ASE would have six factories under construction this year, another record-breaking number, ASE chief operating officer Tien Wu
RSS