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Cookson Group plc (London, UK) announced that Stephen Howard intends to relinquish his role as group chief executive after the identification and appointment of a successor. The process of identifying a successor has commenced and the Board hopes that an appointment will be made during 2004. Accordingly, it is expected that Howard will leave the company on or before Dec. 31, 2004.

Howard has been a director of Cookson since 1992 and in his current position since 1997. During the seven years of his tenure as group chief executive, Cookson has been fundamentally reshaped into a highly focused group, centered around electronics and ceramics, with the precious metals division the subject of an ongoing strategic review, as announced on March 15, 2004.

Stephen Howard said, "My eighteen years at Cookson have been enormously fulfilling, but the time has simply come to do something else. The company is now in excellent competitive shape and the long-awaited recovery is clearly underway, making this year the appropriate time to pass the baton on."

Bob Beeston, chairman of Cookson, said, "The Board is very grateful for Stephen Howard's contribution to, and leadership of, the company over many years. After three years of very difficult trading conditions, Cookson is now firmly on the recovery path, is in a sound financial position and is therefore very well positioned to prosper under his successor."

An announcement concerning a successor will be made at the appropriate time.

www.cookson.co.uk

At Nepcon Shanghai 2004, Cor Scholten, Assembléon's (Eindhoven, The

Netherlands) chief executive officer, confirmed that Asia, and in particular, China, is a key element of the company's long-term global business strategy.

In 2003, sales in Asia grew to 40% of the company's total sales, up from just over 30% in 2002, with China representing 30% of this growth. As a direct result of the company's aggressive drive to increase market share in this market, Assembléon expects China to represent 70% of total Asia sales in 2004.

"We recognized China as a growing force in the global market several years ago and moved quickly to position ourselves to serve not only the large multinational original design manufacturers (ODMs) and electronics manufacturing service (EMS) companies that were moving their operations into China, but also the large number of local Chinese enterprises that were becoming increasingly sophisticated and challenging the foreign-owned multinationals," said Scholten.

"Unlike many other vendors, Assembléon does not view China simply as a location for low-cost manufacturing," Scholten continued. "Instead, we firmly believe that China is one of the key market and technology drivers in the world. No longer is China just looking at its export markets, but domestic sales are booming and helping to drive new technology around the world. Also, many of the domestic brands, such as Bird, Eastcom, and TCL, are outselling multinational brands by swiftly incorporating new functionality as soon as it becomes available."

In addition to its distribution policy, Assembléon has continued its own direct commitment to China, and expects to more than quadruple its staff headcount by the end of 2004. The additional staff will be deployed in the new locations around the country and in a new training and demonstration center expected to open in Shanghai before the end of the year.

Assembléon's drive to increase market share and sales in 2004 is focused upon a number of industry segments: consumer electronics—including PC motherboards, mobile phones, LCD monitors and DVD/EVD players; telecommunications equipment, including PBXs and trunking systems; and the automotive electronics and GPS segments.

www.assembleon.com

Valor Computerized Systems (Yavne, Israel), a software solutions provider to the electronics industry, has reported an improvement in its revenue for the first quarter of 2004.

Business in the global electronics industry is picking up, which is positively impacting the company's overall business. Revenues in the first quarter increased by 16.4% to $7.15 million, up from $6.14 million in Q1 2003.

During the quarter, Valor experienced a steep increase in research and development investments, due to the purchase of 50% of Danish company TraceXpert and the development of new products. R&D expenses rose 60% from the same quarter last year to $2.66 million. The company's headcount increased to 199, a raise of 16% mainly attributed to the increase in the R&D force.

Selling and marketing expenses were the same as the previous quarter at $3.34 million, up 9.6% from the previous year. +Product sales generated $4.6 million, up 20% year-on-year.

Due to the investments in new products, the net profit for Q1 was $295,000, down from $623,000 in Q1 2003. However, positive cash flow from operating activities reached $1.25 million.

www.valor.com

March Plasma Systems (Concord, CA) recently established direct operations in Japan. The new March offices are located in the Nordson facility in Tokyo, Japan.

"With a growing customer base in Japan, our new offices in Tokyo allow us to provide our customers with local sales and service support," said Peter Bierhuis, president.

The Japan facilities will be equipped with March plasma treatment systems for customer training, demonstration and applications support. To manage Japanese operations, March appointed Terumitsu Tsuji as business manager, Japan and named Yuji Takai regional sales manager.

Other recent activities include the appointment of new distributors for the semiconductor and printed circuit board (PCB) market segments, and the formation of strategic alliances with key allied equipment partners in the Japanese market.

March Plasma Systems is a provider of gas plasma technology for semiconductor, PCB and webbed material industries.

www.marchplasma.com

Electronics manufacturing services (EMS) provider EPIC Technologies (Rochester Hills, MI) has recently added two new surface-mount technology lines to its facility in Juarez, Mexico. The new Siemens lines bring EPIC's Mexico capacity to a total of seven lines. Steve Fraser, general manager of EPIC's Norwalk, OH, facility, said the company specifically uses Siemens machinery because of its quick changeover capability that allows for flexibility and accuracy.

Fraser said, "In addition to the new Siemens lines, we have added another EPM wave solder machine, EPM vapor phase rework station for fine pitch, flip chip and ball grid array (BGA devices) and two vapor phase inline reflow ovens in our Juarez location."

The vapor phase reflow ovens use an inert Teflon solution, which will not leave a residue on the printed circuit boards that go through it. One of the advantages of vapor phase reflow ovens is the lower operating temperatures (lead solder 200^oC and lead free 230^oC). The company will now be poised to handle most lead-free alloys.

EPIC's 70,000 sq. ft. operation in Juarez opened in July 2002 with just over 100 employees. The staff grew to 260 workers last summer, with current employment in Mexico at over 600 people. In addition, the operation has implemented a 24/7 schedule since January to provide additional capacity and flexibility. The success in Juarez has led EPIC's management to conduct a preliminary analysis to expand their Mexican operations, possibly with an additional site in late 2004.

www.epictech.biz

SMT Resource Group LLC (SMTR, Wake Forest, NC), a reseller and integrator of new and refurbished electronics assembly equipment, is celebrating its fifth year of operations.

SMTR has delivered approximately 500 machines to customers worldwide during its first five years. The majority has been sold internationally, especially to Asia, where China is the biggest market, followed closely by Korea. The mix of customers includes local customers and North American companies manufacturing in Asia.

SMTR has increased profits every year, converting them into inventory and leveraging them into financial relationships with banks.

SMTR's Eastern Technical Center with 6,000 sq. ft. is located in Wake Forest, NC, and includes the company's administrative offices. The Central Technical Center in Temple, TX, has 50,000 sq. ft.; the Western Technical Center has 12,000 sq. ft. and is located in Concord, CA. SMTR has over 100 major pieces of equipment in inventory. Additionally, the company has sold 200 machines during the past year.

Eric Berg founded Encore Trading East LLC in December 1998, after a career with GE Capital, Universal Instruments and Texas Instruments. Chris Thornton founded Encore Trading West LLC in early 1999 with the intention of working with Encore Trading East. This resulted in the joint formation of Encore Trading International on April 15, 1999.

Malcolm Montanjees owner of Equipment Services LLC worked with Berg and Thornton at GE Capital and assisted Encore Trading Intl., which lead to formation of SMTR on Jan 1, 2002.

SMTR wants to recognize Dave Heller, who began with Encore Trading on April 15, 1999. Heller has worked in the used equipment business, beginning with Universal Instruments close to 20 years ago after being employed at IBM. He is now the Tech Center Manager for SMTR's Eastern facility.

www.smtresource.com