After the IPO launched last year, which provided Tronics with the financial resources needed to execute its business plan and strengthen its technological leadership on international markets, I’m glad to announce to you today, that Tronics has reached a new milestone in its history.
Indeed, the TDK group (TDK), one of the largest electronic components manufacturers in the world based in Tokyo, Japan, has expressed its wish to acquire Tronics through a public tender offer conducted by its wholly-owned subsidiary EPCOS, a leading manufacturer of electronic components, modules and systems based in Munich, Germany.*
This decision results from a growing interest in Tronics’ high performance inertial sensors for industrial markets, in combination with Tronics’ engineering expertise and MEMS foundry services.
While the TDK Group is accelerating its expansion through business collaborations with strategic partners and M&A, the acquisition of Tronics would offer the possibility to further broaden its cutting-edge sensor technologies (which currently includes temperature, pressure and magnetic/TMR-based sensor technologies). Therefore, integrating Tronics would open up attractive new opportunities in the promising growth markets for inertial sensors in industrial, automotive and consumer electronics, thus enabling the TDK Group to provide customers with a wide range of sensor solutions.
For Tronics, this transaction would further develop its business in a stable and solid environment in order to leverage the strengths and resources of the company. By benefiting from an access to a global sales network and key OEM/Tier1 in key sectors, Tronics would enrich its go-to-market approach with focus on higher-volume, industrial and automotive applications in addition to Tronics’ existing ones.
Tronics’ Crolles headquarter (near Grenoble, France) will serve as the global competence centre for inertial sensors and continue to provide MEMS manufacturing solutions based on its own facilities, as well as maintaining its Dallas Foundry Services operation, which is also seen as a significant added value for the growing Medical and BioMEMS markets. The deal would also secure Tronics’ sensitive activities.
Thales has announced that it intends to remain a shareholder and would enter into a shareholders’ agreement with EPCOS if the offer is successful.
In conclusion, this acquisition represents a promising opportunity for both TDK/EPCOS and Tronics, as well as all of our customers and partners. Therefore, we remain fully committed to maintaining the continuity of our R&D, engineering and manufacturing projects with you, at both business and technical levels.
As we are now entering a regulatory approval process involving the French Government, we will keep you posted with the progress made. In the meantime, we invite you to warmly welcome and fully support this opportunity with us.
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