Hurco acquires two machine tool companies

By Niraj M Wanikar, Chief Editor, CNCTimes.com, 2015-07-27 16:38:31

Hurco Companies Inc, a leader in the development and manufacture of machine tools with integrated control technologies for the worldwide metal cutting market, announced that, through a wholly-owned subsidiary, it acquired substantially all of the assets of US-based Milltronics Manufacturing Company, Inc. d/b/a Milltronics CNC Machines (Milltronics). Founded in 1973, Milltronics designs and manufactures CNC knee mills, toolroom bed mills, vertical machining centers, combination lathes, slant-bed lathes, horizontal machining centers, and bed mills.

In addition, Hurco announced that its subsidiary Hurco Manufacturing Limited (Hurco Ltd.) entered into an agreement to acquire the business, technology, goodwill and operating assets of Takumi Machinery Co. Ltd., a Taiwanese company founded in 1988 (Takumi). Takumi designs and manufactures CNC vertical machining centers, double column machining centers, high speed bridge machines and other machine tools, with sales primarily in Taiwan, China and Europe.

Subject to approval of the acquisition by the shareholders of Takumi at a meeting to be held before the end of July 2015, and to customary closing conditions, Hurco expects the closing of the acquisition to occur by the end of July 2015. Liberty Diversified International, Inc. (LDI) is the sole shareholder of Milltronics and the owner of approximately 98% of the outstanding shares of Takumi. LDI has agreed to cause the required Takumi shareholder approval to be obtained.

Mr. Gregory Volovic, President of Hurco, said:

"We believe these strategic acquisitions will significantly benefit global customers and Hurco. The Milltronics and Takumi machine tool brands are strong global brands for expansive machine tool product lines. Milltronics and Takumi have a combined customer base exceeding 18,000 installed machines throughout 30 countries. Hurco plans to continue to market the Hurco, Milltronics and Takumi branded machine tool products separately, given the distinguishing, unique values of each product line and brand. The Hurco, Milltronics and Takumi machine tool product lines should benefit from development of product enhancements, technologies and models due to the ability to leverage shared resources and cross-utilization of proven engineering designs.  We believe these acquisitions will assist in our efforts to expand our global platform, particularly in strategic markets such as China and Latin America, and to achieve manufacturing cost reductions from economies of scale and manufacturing efficiencies."

Mr. Volovic continued:

"Takumi and Milltronics machine tool products and end user markets are highly complementary to Hurco machine tool products and end user markets, in that approximately 60% of Milltronics and Takumi's machine tool lines are unique, will expand our consolidated product range and customer base, and will accelerate emerging market penetration. For example, unlike Hurco and Milltronics machine tools, Takumi machines are equipped with industrial controls from Fanuc, Siemens, Mitsubishi or Heidenhain for high-volume manufacturing environments. The combined Hurco, Milltronics and Takumi businesses will represent one of the most comprehensive product portfolios in the machine tool industry, with more than 150 different models. We believe that these two acquisitions should be accretive to Hurco's consolidated earnings in its 2016 fiscal year."

Mr Michael Doar, Chairman of the Board and CEO of Hurco Companies, Inc., stated:

"Since Hurco was founded in 1968, the cornerstone of the company has been its culture of innovation that focuses on consistent and continuous research and development. We are confident this culture will transfer to Milltronics and Takumi as they are both companies comprised of people who share our passion to advance the manufacturing industry through innovation. We look forward to working with Milltronics and Takumi employees and customers and sharing the success of our efforts with our shareholders.

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