Sigma-Aldrich acquires Epichem Group Limited to Expand SAFC Hitech capabilities
Sigma-Aldrich announced that it has acquired all of the outstanding shares of Epichem Group Limited of Bromborough, United Kingdom, to expand its SAFC Hitech business offering. The acquisition of Epichem's $40 million in annual revenues is expected to help Sigma-Aldrich achieve its growth goals in key high technology markets over the next several years and will be neutral to mildly accretive to earnings in 2007, with no significant initial charges.
Barry Leese, Managing Director of Epichem, its majority equity holder and one of the founders of the company has been appointed President of the SAFC Hitech business segment. Epichem management and employees will remain in place.
As the consumer market continually demands faster, higher-performance semiconductor devices with increased energy efficiencies, technology demands have placed materials and materials knowledge at the forefront of product innovation, with chemistry playing an increasingly important role in new product development. Epichem, focused on supplying high-purity chemicals to the electronics and photovoltaic markets, joins its proven expertise in the development of new molecules and innovative customer/partner collaborative processes for the semiconductor markets with SAFC's historic expertise in novel chemistry development and manufacturing in creating a powerful new entity.
"Epichem's product portfolio and solid relationships with key end users and equipment suppliers brings important new global customer relationships to SAFC Hitech," commented Frank Wicks, President of SAFC.
"The synergy created through this acquisition is a great fit for both organizations," said Leese. "This venture pairs solid development and commercial manufacturing capabilities with a robust product portfolio and customer-centric collaborative R&D process."
"The semiconductor industry continuously demands fresh materials and architectures to improve power, performance and density to deliver next-generation advanced technology products," said President Arvind Sodhani, Intel Capital. "Epichem is an innovator in semiconductor materials and the combination with Sigma-Aldrich brings together complementary strengths to support this market segment." Intel Capital was the sole investor in financing Epichem in October 2005.
