News › Mater­ion Cor­po­ra­tion to Acquire Optics Balzers

Focu­sing on the company‘s growth stra­tegy the Optics Bal­zers‘ share­hol­ders have been loo­king for new busi­ness oppor­tu­ni­ties: On Mon­day June 8, 2020 the US based Mater­ion Cor­po­ra­tion, lis­ted on the New York Stock Exch­ange, announ­ced it has ente­red into a defi­ni­tive agree­ment to acquire Optics Bal­zers AG in an all-cash transaction. 

»We are ser­ving one of the most attrac­tive growth mar­kets and the key fac­tor of suc­cess is growth«, Det­lev Haeus­ler says. He is CEO of Optics Bal­zers with head­quar­ters in Liech­ten­stein and sites in Ger­many and Malay­sia which gene­ra­tes a total reve­nue of about $67 mil­lion per year. Optics Bal­zers is a pri­va­tely held indus­try part­ner for the deve­lo­p­ment and pro­duc­tion of coa­ted opti­cal com­pon­ents and sub­as­sem­blies and lea­ding pro­vi­der of opti­cal thin film coa­ting solu­ti­ons. To con­sis­t­ently fol­low the company’s growth stra­tegy Optics Bal­zers‘ share­hol­ders deci­ded to sell the com­pany to Mater­ion, a lea­ding com­pany of pre­cis­ion coa­tings and advan­ced mate­ri­als, based in Ohio, USA. In 2019, the cor­po­ra­tion gene­ra­ted total sales of around $1.2 bil­lion. Mater­ion takes over 100 per­cent of the shares.

Employees will be taken over

After an exten­sive eva­lua­tion pro­cess, Haeus­ler is con­vin­ced having achie­ved a sus­tainable solu­tion which is still sub­ject to the anti­trust exami­na­tion and expec­ted to close in the third quar­ter 2020. »We are assum­ing that all employees in all sites will be taken over because the focus of the company’s acqui­si­tion is on growth rather than on cost reduc­tion. The new owners are aware of the strong Optics Bal­zers brand value. Thanks to the new share­hol­der Optics Bal­zers will be able to imple­ment the glo­bal expan­sion stra­tegy more quickly, and bet­ter exploit opportunities.«

Hig­her mar­ket penetration

Mater­ion will be a strong share­hol­der, imple­men­ting a growth road map with Optics. The take­over is a long-term com­mit­ment to the mar­kets and pro­duc­tion sites of Optics Bal­zers, which will be an important part in Materion‘s Pre­cis­ion Coa­tings Divi­sion. The mer­ged com­pany will essen­ti­ally con­tri­bute to achieve a hig­her mar­ket pene­tra­tion based on a broa­der pro­duct portfolio.
Mater­ion is a glo­bal sup­plier for pre­cis­ion com­pon­ents which are used in tele­com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons, con­su­mer elec­tro­nics, auto­mo­tive, medi­cal, indus­trial com­pon­ents, aero­space, defense, and opti­cal coa­ting industries.

Com­ple­men­tary structures

The struc­tures of the two com­pa­nies are com­ple­men­tary: Optics Bal­zers pro­fits from Materion’s sales strength in the USA and Mater­ion bene­fits from Optics Bal­zers’ mar­ket posi­tion in Europe. The cur­rent mar­ket deve­lo­p­ment made clear that Optics Bal­zers could achieve its growth tar­gets with an addi­tio­nal loca­tion in the USA and fur­ther­more the Optics plant in Malay­sia fits into Materion’s road map. The mar­ket port­fo­lio and regio­nal pre­sence com­ple­ment each other well and show little over­lap. Busi­ness poten­tial can also be exploi­ted in the field of technologies.

Invest­ments will continue

»We under­stand that invest­ments will con­ti­nue at all three Optics Bal­zers‘ loca­ti­ons«, Haeus­ler says. In Bal­zers high-end coa­ting tech­no­lo­gies of Mater­ion will be set up (e.g. infrared), to serve the Euro­pean mar­ket in addi­tion to the exis­ting Optics Bal­zers‘ pro­duct port­fo­lio. In Jena, Ger­many, the deman­ding coa­tings for life sci­en­ces, indus­try and space will be streng­the­ned, Haeus­ler expects. In Penang, Malay­sia, Mater­ion will set up addi­tio­nal pro­jects to broa­den the diversification.

More growth thanks to acquisition

With this acqui­si­tion, Mater­ion signi­fi­cantly expands its geo­gra­phic reach in the opti­cal coa­tings mar­ket, exten­ding bey­ond its core of North Ame­rica to include Europe and Asia. Com­ple­men­tary tech­no­lo­gies across the elec­tro­ma­gne­tic spec­trum boost the capa­bi­li­ties of the com­bi­ned port­fo­lio and posi­tion Mater­ion to capi­ta­lize on key mega­trends in the areas of life sci­en­ces, con­su­mer, and industrial.
»We have long held a deep amount of respect and app­re­cia­tion for the Optics Bal­zers busi­ness. Their tech­ni­cal capa­bi­li­ties, pro­duct port­fo­lio, end mar­ket, and geo­gra­phic mix, com­bi­ned with their talen­ted lea­der­ship team make them the ideal part­ner to acce­le­rate our glo­bal growth in opti­cal coa­tings,« sta­tes Jugal Vijay­var­giya, Pre­si­dent and Chief Exe­cu­tive Offi­cer of Materion.
Cre­dit Suisse ser­ved as finan­cial advi­sor and Bär & Kar­rer as legal advi­sor to the sellers.

About Optics Balzers

Optics Bal­zers (loca­ted in the Prin­ci­pa­lity of Liech­ten­stein) has been the pre­fer­red part­ner for pro­vi­ding inno­va­tive opti­cal coa­tings and solu­ti­ons for more than 70 years. Tog­e­ther with its sub­si­dia­ries in Jena (Ger­many) and Penang (Malay­sia), Optics Bal­zers is a glo­bal lea­der in the sup­ply of opti­cal coa­tings and com­pon­ents. The Liech­ten­stein-based high-tech com­pany focu­ses on sel­ec­ted mar­kets such as Life Sci­en­ces, Indus­try, Con­su­mer, Space, Auto­mo­tive and Light­ing. The pro­ducts and ser­vices offe­red range from opti­cal coa­tings and glass pro­ces­sing, pat­ter­ning and bon­ding tech­no­lo­gies, to the manu­fac­ture of com­plete opti­cal sub­as­sem­blies and are ack­now­led­ged as being uni­que worldwide.

For more infor­ma­tion, please visit: www.opticsbalzers.com

About Mater­ion

Mater­ion Cor­po­ra­tion is head­quar­te­red in May­field Heights, Ohio. The Com­pany, through its wholly owned sub­si­dia­ries, sup­plies highly engi­nee­red advan­ced enab­ling mate­ri­als to glo­bal mar­kets. Pro­ducts include pre­cious and non-pre­cious specialty.

For more infor­ma­tion, please visit: www.materion.com