Fairey acquires Spectris

Fairey Group PLC is a UK-based mini-conglomerate that has been buying US and other businesses regularly - mostly small companies like Ircon, RedLion, Luxtron, NDS, etc. Process Instrumentation is about two-thirds of the group. Sales have been flat at about $425m, which of course affects their stock price.

Now, in a bold move, Fairey is acquiring Spectris AG - at about $ 400m sales this is big for Fairey. The acquisition price is about $200m (0.5 times sales, which is low) and hopefully "accretive" - at a valuation that helps Fairey, which needed needed a big acquisition to show some growth. Spectris is the biggest one they've made yet and we'll need to see how they digest it.

Spectris manufactures instruments, systems and controls, with HQ in Langen, Germany. Spectris itself had previously acquired B&K (test & measurement), HBM (load-cells) and BTG (paper & pulp sensors) - these will probably be split off and run separately, which is the Fairey MO.

Fairey Press Release on Spectris