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Credence rethinks acquisition binge
January 8, 2008
Growth through acquisition has seemingly been a mantra at Credence Systems, which scooped up companies such as TMT (in 2000) and NPTest (in 2004). The acquisitions positioned the company to test a plethora of components—from RF ICs to microprocessors—serving myriad applications. Now, having achieved its first annual profit in six years, the company is retrenching to focus on the test of consumer semiconductor devices.
Lavi Lev, Credence's president and CEO, said retrenchment will shrink the company by about 30% and cost about 500 jobs in Europe and North America while adding about 100 jobs in Armenia and East Asia as the company augments some R&D efforts—particularly for its successful ASL platform—and regroups to better serve its Asian customers.
In a phone interview, Lev said, “It was pretty clear from employees, customers, and investors that we were doing too many things for too many people. We are not everything to everybody. We bought companies over the years and didn’t integrate them well. We needed to pick what we are best in the world at and go for it.”
Read the related article.
Posted by Rick Nelson on January 8, 2008 | Comments (0)
