STOCKHOLM – Note will acquire 50% of a Philippines-based Ionics EMS facility in China, the company said today. The deal is expected to be accretive to sales and earnings starting in 2008. No other financial terms were disclosed.

The Ionics facility, located in Tangxia, Guandong, about 90 minutes from Hong Kong, was built in 2005 and will be used for new and existing customers, including the telecom and industrial sectors, Note CEO and president Arne Forslund said in a statement. The facility has annual production capacity of about $76.8 million, yet is current running at less than 20% of that.
 
Note is following a strategy to acquire production capacity in lower-wage-rate countries.  
 
“In the current year, this will generate a marginal effect on sales and earnings, but we will see a positive effect as early as during 2008 because we can relocate production to Asia,” Forslund said. New customers they expect to attract through this deal would be additional.