Siplace team becomes ASM Assembly Systems

The Siplace team with its approximately 1'200 members worldwide will be integrated into the ASMPT group as a business unit under the name "ASM Assembly Systems". The Munich location with its almost 700 employees will remain Siplace’s headquarters as well as its main development and manufacturing site; the Siplace organization, which has sales and service locations all over the world, will remain largely unchanged. The closing on January 7, 2011 concludes the sale of the Siplace placement equipment business to Hong Kong-based ASMPT. In future, the global Siplace team will operate as a business unit under the name "ASM Assembly Systems" when the almost 1,200 employees worldwide are integrated into the ASMPT group. Only the transfer of legal ownership of the Siplace entity in China will have to be deferred due to pending official approval of the transfer of ownership by the Chinese authorities. Meanwhile, economic interest in Siplace China has been transferred to ASMPT as of January 1, 2011. Integration as a business unit The Siplace team prepared for this sale in recent years by restructuring its operations – an effort that is now paying off as its worldwide production, development, sales and service locations within the Siplace organization are being integrated into the ASMPT group. The global management team under CEO Günter Lauber and COO Günter Schindler will remain in place, as will the heads of the regional clusters. The division’s management, development and manufacturing headquarters will continue to be Munich, Germany. Focus on growth "In recent years, our customers made ASMPT the leading supplier of equipment and systems in the semiconductor and LED field. The acquisition which has just been completed provides us with an entry into the SMT placement segment. Working together with the Siplace team will open up new growth markets as our respective processes and technologies continue to converge. I am pleased that the teams from ASMPT and Siplace work so well together in their first joint projects and have already begun to put the resulting synergies in the areas of development, production and procurement to good use for the benefit of our customers," says WK Lee, CEO of ASMPT, about the strategic motives behind the deal.