PHOENIX - Avnet Inc. has agreed to acquire Memec Group Holdings LTD in a stock and cash transaction valued at $676 million, including the assumption of $194 million of Memec debt. Combined, the distributors will have annual sales of more than $8.5 billion.
Under the terms of the agreement, Memec investors will receive a total of approximately 24.011 million shares of Avnet common stock plus $64 million in cash. The transaction, which is expected to generate cost savings of $130 million annually, is scheduled to close in 60 to 90 days.MANKATO, MN - Winland Electronics Inc., an EMS firm, announced first quarter revenue of $7 million, up 35.3% from last year. Net income increased 71.4% to $374,535 for the same period.
The increase was related to new product line items integrated from OEM customers during 2004 combined with improved sales of
the company's proprietary products.
It was a record quarter for the company, and its 13th consecutive profitable
quarter.
Gross profits for the quarter were $1.7
million, up 24.3%. Gross profit decreased as a percentage of net sales
from 26.4% in Q1 2004 to 24.2% in the first quarter
of 2005, due to higher costs from new
product designs and billable
engineering projects.
Income from operations increased 68.9% to $629,203 due to a significant increase
in sales. Total operating
expenses increased 7.5% for the first quarter to $1.1 million.
During the quarter Winland's largest customer, Select
Comfort, increased its purchase commitments by $4.5
million.
The company completed the quarter with $587,007 in cash and a current ratio of 2.75 to 1.
SAN JOSE - Outsourcing of IC packaging assembly has fully resumed as unit growth reached double-digits the past three years. Contractors will continue to inherit a growing percentage of the IC packaging business as semiconductor manufacturers focus on the front end.
That's according to Electronic Trend Publications, a San Jose-based research firm. In a just released report, "The Worldwide IC Packaging Market," ETP finds that the worldwide IC market grew 28% in 2004 to $179 billion - surpassing the 2000 peak of $177 billion. IC units hit 105 billion, up 53% since 2001.
WASHINGTON - The U.S. high-tech industry lost 25,000 jobs in 2004,
dropping to 5.6 million, say a study released today by AeA. The decline represents a considerable
slowdown in technology jobs lost, compared to the 333,000 jobs lost in
2003 and the 612,000 jobs lost in 2002.
"The good news is that the technology industry looks to have turned a corner," said AeA president and CEO William T. Archey. "For the first time since 2000, both software services and engineering and tech services added jobs. Each of these tech sectors added over 30,000 net new jobs to the economy in 2004. This is especially positive news because tech jobs pay 84% more than the average private sector job."
AeA found that all but four states lost high-tech jobs in 2003, the most recent year for which state data are available. California and Texas lost the greatest number of tech jobs, shedding some 67,800 and 32,900 jobs, respectively. Despite these losses, California and Texas remained the leading cyberstates by employment, followed by New York and Florida. However, Virginia displaced Massachusetts in 2003, becoming the fifth largest state by technology employment. And, while Colorado remained the nation's leading cyberstate by concentration of high-tech workers, Virginia also moved up by this metric to second place.
The report also found that venture capital investment in the technology industry rose for the first time since 2000. High-tech venture capital investment totaled $11.8 billion in 2004, compared to $10.7 billion in 2003. Archey stated, "While the tech industry is beginning to make some headway, we need to be aware of increased challenges to our lead in science and technology as competition from the rest of the world intensifies. We need to pay particular attention to the factors that drive technology innovation, primarily a highly educated and skilled workforce and research and development."
SAN JOSE - Although U.S. semiconductor manufacturers still have 47% of
the worldwide chip market, only 20% of state-of-the-art production facilities
now under construction are in the U.S. Lower tax rates and incentives that
reduce the cost of capital in other countries - not lower labor costs - are the
principal reasons why most new manufacturing facilities currently being built
are outside the U.S., according to the Semiconductor Industry Association.
"A
dramatic shift in semiconductor manufacturing is now under way," said SIA
president George Scalise in testimony before the US-China Economic and Security
Review Commission in Palo Alto,
CA, on April 21.
"Approximately two-thirds of the 300mm wafer fabrication facilities now
under construction worldwide are in Asia, with a significant portion of those
facilities in China.
Chinese government policies - not lower labor costs - are the principal factor
in a differential of more than $1 billion in the 10-year cost of building and
operating a 300mm wafer fab in the U.S.
versus China,"
Scalise said.
"Even
an 80% differential in wage rates between China
and the U.S.
is not a major factor in plant location decisions because semiconductor wafer
fabrication facilities are capital- and technology-intensive," Scalise
continued. "Government incentives such as favorable tax treatment and
other assistance programs account for approximately 90% of the cost
differential. Like it or not, the reality is that government incentives play a
major role in where investment takes place. Given the critical importance of
semiconductors in driving U.S.
economic growth and ensuring our national security, maintaining a competitive
semiconductor manufacturing capability and a supporting ecosystem must be an
important priority for America's
federal and state governments."
Scalise
said the U.S.
needs a coordinated strategy to reduce the cost differential created by foreign
government tax and incentive policies. He recommended a number of specific
actions that Congress should take to change policies that discourage investment
in capital-intensive manufacturing facilities in the U.S., including:
•
Providing federal tax holidays to match the tax holidays offered by overseas
competitors.
• Making
the R&D tax credit permanent and enacting enhancements to make it more
effective.
•
Allowing companies to expense high-tech manufacturing equipment in order to
improve cash flow and stimulate investment in new equipment.
•
Re-examining international taxation rules and considering alternatives to the
current rules on taxing foreign-source income.
•
Enacting significant tax rate reductions to make manufacturing costs in the U.S. more
competitive with costs in other countries.
"Leadership
in semiconductor technology is ours to keep, or ours to lose. The investments
and policy changes needed to allow U.S. manufacturers to compete in
the face of foreign incentives designed to lure investment offshore are neither
easy nor inexpensive, but it is vital that we make them. The first step is that
we must choose to compete," Scalise concluded.
The full
text of the SIA testimony can be found at https://www.sia-online.org/downloads/testimony_china_050421.pdf.
FRANKLIN, MA- Effective immediately, Powell Industries will represent Speedline Technologies in the states of Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana, and in British Columbia.
Headquartered in Issaquah, WA, Powell Industries has additional offices in Tukwila and Spokane, WA, and Beaverton, OR.MANSFIELD, TX - FCI Electronics, a supplier of high-speed connectors, named Mouser Electronics as a global distributor.
FCI makes connectors, mod jacks, sockets, and other components for BGAs, backplanes and other electronics assemblies.
Mouser Electronics, a privately-held company and subsidiary of TTI, has a base of over 100,000 business customer and focuses on design and prototyping.
The results met company expectations.
In a press statement, Jeffrey T. Gill, president and chief executive, said, "Revenue continued to climb while the costs associated with the increase in manufacturing capacity, launch of new programs and disruption of material deliveries began to abate from the levels experienced during the fourth quarter. We expect these cost overruns to continue during the second quarter at a declining rate as the new manufacturing cells are completed and new programs enter full production, after which we expect margins to gradually return to historical levels."
For the quarter, backlogs rose 22% to a record $261.7 million. it was the ninth consecutive quarter of
year-on-year growth in bookings.
Sales of electronics declined to $35.6 million, compared to $40.9 million for the prior year and were down 23% sequentially from the fourth quarter. The compay said the drop was normal and cited seasonality in government's procurement cycles. Gross profit for the quarter was $5 million, down from $7.9 million, due to continued decline in shipments for data systems products.