Thermal imaging giant, Flir Systems, has acquired Point Grey Research for $253 million in cash.
The addition of the Point Grey business will add a broad range of visible spectrum machine vision cameras and solutions to Flir’s OEM cores and components business.
Upon completion Point Grey will become Flir Integrated Imaging Solutions, operating as a stand-alone entity within Flir's OEM and Emerging Segment.
Earlier in the year, Flir purchased precision optics developer Armasight for $41 million. It also bought video surveillance company DVTEL for $92 million at the end of 2015.
Armasight, based in San Francisco, produced night vision, thermal and daylight imaging products, which tied in well with Flir’s thermal imaging product range for law enforcement and military customers. DVTEL also added to Flir’s existing surveillance capabilities.
The Point Grey acquisition with its visible camera technology could be seen as a new direction for Flir, which, until now, has concentrated on thermal imaging and infrared products.
'Point Grey is a global leader and a proven, high-performing business with an impressive set of products, customers, processes, and people, all of which we see as being highly synergistic and strategically significant to Flir,' commented Bill Terre, VP and general manager of Flir’s OEM and Emerging Segment, in a statement for Imaging and Machine Vision Europe.
Vlad Tucakov, CEO of Point Grey, added that the acquisition will support the next level of Point Grey’s corporate growth by having access to the experience offered by Flir. 'Point Grey and Flir provide solutions to a wide array of applications and markets making the partnership a great fit,' he commented, speaking to Imaging and Machine Vision Europe.
'I truly believe that our combined products and industry expertise in various vertical markets will open up many new opportunities for machine vision,' Tucakov continued in his statement.
In addition to augmenting Flir’s product line, Flir’s thermal sensor technology will extend Point Grey’s product range into new application spaces within the Integrated Imaging Solutions business. Tucakov noted that the combination of stereo vision and spherical imaging with thermal technology will create powerful solutions.
Flir’s thermal sensors are able to measure temperature remotely, see through factory obscurants such as smoke and steam, and detect and characterise human activity in retail settings.
Founded in 1997 and based in Richmond, British Columbia, Point Grey develops advanced visible imaging cameras and solutions that are used in industrial automation, medical diagnostics, people counting, intelligent traffic systems, military and defence products, and advanced mapping.
Point Grey will be launching a 10 GigE camera family at the Vision show in Stuttgart in November. The first available model will be based on the Sony Pregius IMX253 1.1-inch CMOS sensor, with 12.3 megapixel resolution and supporting 4K60 ultra-HD video.
‘We’re excited to add the broad range of innovative products from Point Grey to Flir as together we have a unique capability to create advanced sensing solutions for the broad machine vision market,’ said Andy Teich, president and CEO of Flir in a statement. ‘Thermal imaging technology provides vision systems customers an alternative imaging spectrum that offers a rich, largely untapped layer of information that can be further leveraged. Point Grey’s global presence and credibility in industrial vision systems provides a strong platform for us to integrate our leading thermal technology.
‘Point Grey is a proven, high-performing business with an impressive set of products, customers, processes, and people, all of which we see as being highly synergistic and strategically significant to Flir,’ Teich continued. ‘We welcome the Point Grey employees to Flir and look forward to creating highly valuable solutions for a wide array of intelligent imaging applications.’
The transaction is expected to be completed in the fourth quarter of 2016. Flir anticipates the business and related transaction costs will be approximately $0.01 dilutive to its 2016 earnings per share and accretive for 2017.
Flir Systems reported second quarter 2016 revenue of $402.7 million, up 2 per cent compared to the same period last year. Year-to-date revenue of $782 million was 6 per cent above the prior year.
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