The Stock Purchase Agreement to acquire 100% shares of Specim, Finland-based leading company, has been signed
Konica Minolta, Inc. (Konica Minolta) has been working to grow its Sensing Business by providing a diverse range of high value-added products and solutions for the growing ICT and automotive fields, based on its strengths of light, colour, and appearance measurement technologies. Konica Minolta announced its entry into the hyperspectral imaging (HSI) business by acquiring Finnish company Specim, Spectral Imaging Oy Ltd. (Specim), the leading player in HSI market.
Konica Minolta aims to contribute to the sustainable provision of customer value and the resolution of global social issues in the areas of safety, security, and environmental science with the HSI technology which is a key technology to visualise invisibles under its Sensing Business unit’s growth-strategy.
Konica Minolta gains high precise hyperspectral imaging technology, knowhow, and customer base by acquiring Specim, the leading company in HSI market and leads the market expansion in industrial-use for such as recycle sorting, food sorting, and remote sensing.
This acquisition plays an important role for enlarging Konica Minolta’s business scale in the field of measurement, inspection, and diagnosis based on the new growth strategy and for building the next core pillar of sustainable growth and profit following office business.
Purpose of acquisition
Based on its optical technologies accumulated through the camera business, Konica Minolta provides high-precision measurement products and solutions in the fields of light, colour, and visual surface measurement, thereby contributing to the realisation of customers’ high-quality manufacturing. In addition to expanding the foundations of its existing Sensing Business, Konica Minolta aims to transcend human eyes in the fields of security, safety, and environmental science as its growth strategy to provide sustainable new customer value and resolve global social challenge. HSI is one of key technologies for realising the company’s growth strategies.
About Specim
As a leading company in the HSI industry, Specim has a product lineup that covers a wide range of measurement wavelength, from Visible to Long-wave InfraRed, as well as specific usage scenes such as portable, in-line, and airborne. They also have customer base in a wide range of industries such as recycling, food, and pharmaceuticals, centered on sorting machine manufacturers. In addition, this year Specim announced a platform SpecimONE that will make it easier and faster to incorporate hyperspectral imaging technology into sorting machines, with the aim of further expanding their HSI business in industrial applications.
Going forward
Konica Minolta will accelerate the expansion of applications for HSI technology and the incorporation of equipment in industrial applications by leveraging its global customer base and global network. Konica Minolta will also accelerate to expand its value proposition in the existing business domain and embedded use case for industrial purpose by making synergies with its image processing and optical technologies. In particular, Konica Minolta will expand business in collaboration with manufacturers of sorting equipment for recycling and food products, and strategically target growth markets such as pharmaceuticals. The Stock Purchase Agreement was signed on November 19, 2020 and will be closed in mid-December 2020, subject to authority approvals.
Overview of Specim
| Company name | Specim, Spectral Imaging Oy Ltd. |
| Founded | 1995 |
| Head Office | Oulu, Finland |
| Representative | Tapio Kallonen |
| Number of employees | 68 (as of August 2020) |
| Business | Development, production, and sales of hyperspectral imaging cameras |
About Konica Minolta’s Measuring Instruments Business
Many of Konica Minolta’s Measuring Instruments Business products are used as de facto standards for colour measurement, and Konica Minolta have established a market-leader presence, with more than 50% of the global display image quality inspection solutions market in particular (estimate by Konica Minolta).
In addition, Konica Minolta has been aggressively investing in businesses with the aim of strengthening the competitiveness of our businesses. In 2012, the company acquired Instrument Systems, Germany, which has the ability to develop high-end optical test instruments and has a leading track record in measuring the high performance of displays and LED lighting. In 2015, Konica Minolta acquired U.S.-based Radiant Vision Systems which has strengths in high-resolution two-dimensional measuring instruments and image processing software for displays and automated visual surface inspection systems. In 2019, the company acquired Eines Systems, Spain, which specialises in automotive manufacturing visual quality inspection automation systems.
Konica Minolta aims to grow Measuring Instruments Business by providing a diverse range of high value-added products solutions that enable high-precision measuring of light and color in the growing ICT and automotive domains, thereby driving the market.
Boilerplate
About Konica Minolta Business Solutions Europe
Konica Minolta Business Solutions Europe GmbH, based in Langenhagen, Germany, is a wholly owned subsidiary of Konica Minolta Inc., Tokyo, Japan. Konica Minolta enables its clients to champion the digital era: with its unique imaging expertise and data processing capabilities, Konica Minolta creates relevant solutions for its customers and solves issues faced by society. As a provider of comprehensive IT services, Konica Minolta delivers consultancy and services to optimise business processes with workflow automation. The company further offers its customers solutions and managed services in the field of IT infrastructure and IT security as well as cloud environments. With regard to its office printing solutions, “IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Print Transformation 2020 Vendor Assessment” stated that Konica Minolta is “recognised globally as a leader in print transformation”. As a strong partner for the professional printing market, Konica Minolta offers business consulting, state-of-the-art technology and software and has established itself as the production printing market leader for more than a decade in Europe (InfoSource). Its Business Innovation Centre in London and four R & D laboratories in Europe enable Konica Minolta to bring innovation forward by collaborating with its customers as well as academic, industrial and entrepreneurial partners. For its innovative service approach that complements their devices perfectly, Konica Minolta was awarded the prestigious ‘”Buyers Lab PaceSetter Award for Serviceability and Support 2020/2021″ by Keypoint Intelligence. Konica Minolta Business Solutions Europe is represented by subsidiaries and distributors in more than 80 countries in Europe, Central Asia, the Middle East and Africa. With approximately 10,000 employees (as of April 2020), Konica Minolta Europe earned net sales of over 2.34 billion in financial year 2019/2020.
For more information, please visit http://newsroom.konicaminolta.eu/ and follow Konica Minolta on Facebook, YouTube and Twitter @KonicaMinoltaEU.
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SOURCE Konica Minolta
