NEW YORK -- Cemtrex today announced it has completed the sale of its EMS business, ROB Cemtrex, for €6.37 million ($7.06 million).

The acquiring group, Finvest GmbH, is a German private equity group.

Cemtrex ROB, which performs product design, engineering, printed circuit board assembly, cabling and wire harnessing, systems integration, has approximately 250 employees with operations in Germany and Romania.

In a statement, Cemtrex CEO and chairman Saagar Govil said, “The sale of ROB represents an important step in successfully delivering our strategy. We felt the timing was right with the outlook in the Eurozone being tepid for years to come, and other more lucrative opportunities here domestically. With the sale completed, Cemtrex will continue to utilize its resources to focus on investing in opportunities with attractive long-term growth that leverage the company’s assets and expertise.”

The sale completes a roller coaster ride for Cemtrex's EMS venture. The company started acquiring EMS assests in 2013, including the former Rob Electronic in Neulingen, Germany, and added the Romania operation in 2014. It then made an ill-advised play for Key Tronic, a much larger EMS. That proposal -- Cemtrex never submitted paperwork to the company or the SEC -- was rebuffed in increasingly strident and dismissive language, with Key Tronic CEO Craig Gates ultimately calling its would-be suitor “unqualified” as a buyer: “Our initial research shows [Cemtrex] reports approximately $45 million of EMS revenue. In our opinion, this does not qualify [Cemtrex] to make any statements as to how it might operate an EMS business like KeyTronic which is over 10 times [its] current size in terms of revenue.” 

Cemtrex then endured a reverse stock split as it scrambled to maintain its public listing. Last year, it announced it would wind down its EMS operations in favor of a new focus on proprietary IoT devices. 

Register now for PCB West, the leading conference and exhibition for printed circuit board design! Coming Sept. 9-12 to the Santa Clara Convention Center. pcbwest.com

• Prev
• Next