Oxford Instruments plc: Disposal of holding in Oxford Diffraction Limited.
Oxford Instruments plc (‘Oxford Instruments’), the high technology tools and
systems company, today announces the disposal of its 23% holding in Oxford
Diffraction Limited (‘Oxford Diffraction’) to Varian, Inc. for a cash
consideration of £3.5m. An additional cash amount of up to £1.1m may be received
over the next three years conditional on the performance of Oxford Diffraction.
The cash will be used to reduce Oxford Instruments’ debt.
Oxford Diffraction, based in Abingdon, near Oxford in the UK, was spun out of
Oxford Instruments plc in March 2001 in order to develop, manufacture and supply
analytical instrumentation for X-ray crystallography. As this technique was not
core to Oxford Instruments it was decided to develop it as an independent
company using outside capital and resources.
Oxford Instruments has treated its holding in Oxford Diffraction Limited as an
investment, the carrying value of which was £0.3m at 30 September 2007. This
disposal will result in a non-recurring profit, before costs, of approximately
£3.2m on the initial consideration of £3.5m