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BREDA, HOLLAND – Cobar Europe has promoted Manfred Bult to chief operating officer, effective immediately.

Bult will report to Stan Renals, who has been promoted to chief executive officer.

Bult has been with Cobar BV since 1995, where he has served as director of order processing and procurement since 2003.

Cobar Europe, part of the Balver Zinn Group, is a global supplier of solder, solder paste, solder fluxes and related materials.

COLORADO SPRINGS, CO — Fine Line Stencil, a leading manufacturer of stencil products, has opened a stencil manufacturing facility in Memphis, the company said today.

The site will meet demand for quickturn stencils, and gives the company the ability to ship stencils up to midnight Central time.

“The quickturn demands on the contract manufacturing industry are increasing rapidly and our Memphis facility gives us the ability to accept and ship stencil orders much later in the day,” said Robert Dervaes, vice president of technology and engineering, in a press release.

Fine Line Stencil is a division of FCT Assembly.

SINGAPORE– Venture Corp. Ltd., the world's 15th largest EMS company, reported third-quarter revenue rose 3.2% year-over-year to S$965.6 million. In US dollar terms, revenues were up 13.8% to $698 million for the quarter ended Sept. 30.

NAMPA, ID -- MPC Corp., one of the world's largest PC makers, today filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The company has been delisted from the NYSE and says it doesn't expect equity holders to receive any distributions in conjunction with the bankruptcy cases.

HAUPPAUGE, NY - Jaco Electronics announced today an agreement in principle to sell to certain assets of its components distribution business to WPG Americas Inc., a subsidiary of World Peace Industrial Group. The transaction is subject to customary closing conditions and is expected to close within the next 30 days.

DUSSELDORF, GERMANY -- Henkel's third-quarter sales rose 12% to 3,760 million euros on solid organic growth and the acquisition of certain National Starch businesses. The currency-adjusted growth was 15.8%. Net earnings fell to 107 million euros.

During the quarter, EBIT fell to 191 million euros as the company took restructuring charges of 181 million euros. The adjusted EBIT rose 6.3% to 391 million euros.

Henkel CEO Kasper Rorsted said, "All our business sectors contributed to this growth, each outperforming its relevant markets. Once again, it was particularly our businesses in the growth regions that supported this positive development. The integration of the National Starch businesses, which were major contributors to the substantial rise in total sales, continues on schedule."

Adhesive Technologies sales rose 31.8% to 1.86 million euros after adjusting for currency exchange, due to the acquisition of National Starch's Adhesives and Electronic Materials businesses. Organic growth was 3.6%. The operating profit rose to 169 million euros, up 8.1% after currency exchanges.

Henkel guided for full-year organic sales growth (after adjusting for foreign exchange and acquisitions/divestments) of 3 to 5%, and net operating profit growth of 10%.

JACKSON, MI – EMS provider Sparton Corp. reported first-quarter fiscal 2009 sales of $54 million, down 8.25% year-over-year.

Gross profit was $2.38 million, up 3.22% compared to the same period last year.

For the quarter, Sparton recorded an operating loss of $2.85 million, compared to an operating loss of $2.05 million last year.

The firm reported consistent sonobuoy drop tests and improved sales in the aerospace market.

"We are disappointed at the lower than expected sales. We are very pleased with the successful and consistent execution of the sonobuoy contracts this year, as well as the increase in the aerospace sales and favorable forecast for future sales in the medical market as well,” said Richard Langley, interim CEO and president.

In addition, with the closure of the Albuquerque facility, while a difficult decision to make, will have a positive impact going forward … Gross inventories have decreased approximately $3 million over the past three months and over $7 million since the spring of 2008, primarily the result of better inventory management."

TORONTO -- SMTC Corp. bucked an industry trend, reporting upticks in third-quarter net income ($100,000) and revenue ($60.1 million).

Sales were up 11.3%, while earnings showed a big bump from the year-ago net loss of $1.2 million. However, sales were down 9% sequentially.

MINNEAPOLIS -- Nortech Systems today said third-quarter net sales rose 7% from a year ago to $31.7 million, boosted by strength in the aerospace sector.

For the period ended Sept. 30, net income was $499,261, jumping 19% year-over-year.

HUDSON, MA -- A former Intel employee was charged yesterday with stealing trade secrets valued at more than $1 billion.

Biswamohan Pani is accused of allegedly downloading Intel trade secrets while working simultaneously for Advanced Micro Devices. He has been charged with a total of five counts of theft of trade secrets.

According to the indictment, Pani had taken a job with AMD while still in the employ of Intel, then while on vacation from Intel, allegedly downloaded at least eight documents described by Intel as “confidential,” “secret” or “top secret.”

The information Pani allegedly downloaded was worth $1 billion in research and development costs, according to the federal government.

AMD was unaware of Pani's alleged actions, according to the indictment.

Pani had worked at Intel's Hudson, MA, site before taking the job with AMD in Santa Clara, CA.

ITASCA, IL – ITW has filed its 10-Q quarterly report showing third quarter operating revenues in its Power Systems and Electronics unit grew $53.3 million year-over-year, or 9.4%, to $620.7 million. Year to date, the segment is up 9.7% through Sept. 30.

For the quarter, the operating margin was 19%, down 50 basis points from a year ago. However, base margins climbed 40 basis points during the quarter. Base manufacturing revenues grew 3.1% and operating income was up 5%. Acquisitions made up another 3.7%, while currency translation costs added 2.5%. Growth was spurred primarily by a 26.4% jump in ITW’s international welding business. The acquisition revenue was primarily due to the purchase of a PCB fabrication business and a welding accessories business, ITW said.

The business unit includes Speedline Technologies, Vitronics-Soltec and Kester Solder, among others.

LAGUNA, PHILIPPINES – Integrated Microelectronics Inc. will build biometric authentication cards for Validus Technologies Corp., the companies announced this week. The value of the manufacturing deal was not disclosed.

The Validus-designed VALIDcard is a type of powered card that comes fully self-contained within a card form factor. It has uses in e-commerce, online banking, health care, physical and logical access, and security.

IMI is a top 40 EMS manufacturer with annual revenues of about $400 million.

Validus, which owns powered card patents, “chose IMI as its manufacturing partner due to [its] excellence in engineering, global manufacturing operations and key patents relating to advanced electronics assembly,” said Travis McGregor, CEO of Validus.

Validus and IMI also are producing V2.0 Beta VALIDcards, to be released to beta customers within weeks.