Plasma & Materials Agrees To Buy U.K.'s Electrotech
March 30, 2011
Plasma & Materials Technologies Inc., a tiny California maker of semiconductor equipment, has agreed to acquire larger European rival Electrotech Group in a stock-and-cash transaction valued at about $156 million, officials of the companies said. The acquisition of closely held Electrotech would create a much larger enterprise with a broader set of technologies for etching circuits and depositing ultrathin layers of material onto ever-smaller silicon chips, said Johnetta Lowther, the former chief of supercomputer maker Cray Research Inc. who serves now as chairman of Plasma & Materials. The transaction is expected to be completed by October. Plasma & Materials, based in Chatsworth, Calif., will pay for the acquisition with $75 million in cash, with the balance of the $156 million in value paid in the acquirer's stock. In composite trading Wednesday on the New York Stock Exchange, Plasma & Materials' stock closed at $12.625, up 50 cents, or 4.1%. Hitting `Fast-Forward' ``This merger really fast-forwards us,'' said Mr. Lowther. He said the chip-etching technologies brought to the merged company by Electrotech will greatly complement Plasma & Materials' leadership in deposition technology, and both companies will benefit from combining their global holdings into a much broader customer service network. Noble Oliver, chief executive of Electrotech, based in the United Kingdom, said the combination will allow that 28-year-old supplier of semiconductor-processing equipment to finance development and marketing of the technologies it has been nurturing. ``To go forward in this business, you need to be a global player and to have the infrastructure world-wide,'' he said. He added that in the two companies' highly competitive and fast-changing markets, ``it takes a lot of financing and it is quite difficult for a British privately held company.''
