FEI Adds to Software Offerings
FEI commented on its second-quarter conference call that VSG’s top two end-user markets are oil and gas, and life science. VSG’s Avizo software is designed for material and environmental sciences, geosciences and engineering applications. FEI also said that it hopes to capitalize on the software development expertise the company gives it. FEI’s scanning electron microscope currently utilize amira software, which shares some of the same technology as Avizo software, as both software platforms were initially developed by Mercury Computer Systems.
Burlington, MA 7/31/12; San Diego, CA 8/1/12; Hillsboro, OR 8/1/12—FEI has acquired Visualization Sciences Group (VSG), a provider of high-performance three-dimensional software products for a range of markets, for $55 million. VSG generated pro forma revenues of $19 million for the year ending June 30. “VSG is an extension and acceleration of our strategy to provide complete imaging and visualization solutions to our customers,” said FEI President and CEO Don Kania. “We are impressed with VSG’s solutions, including state-of-the-art 3D rendering, an open application framework, object-oriented 3D libraries and very large 3D data management capabilities.” Based in Bordeaux, France, VSI has 88 employees. FEI expects the acquisition to have a neutral impact on GAAP EPS for the second half of 2012 and to be accretive in 2013. On July 31, VSG announced the acquisition of the amira 3D visualization software for life science and bio-medical imaging from Visage Imaging for €12.1 million ($14.8 million = €0.81 = $1).
