Cohu to acquire spring probe company Kita

Luis A. Müller, Cohu President and Chief Executive Officer, stated, “The acquisition of Kita adds key technology and manufacturing capability to our ITS business that, combined with our leading handler market share, enables significant growth in the USD 685 million contactor market. Kita has initiated a significant manufacturing capacity expansion in Osaka, Japan that will accelerate our plans.” Kita’s current year sales are estimated to be USD 17 million. The purchase price is USD 15 million in cash – which will be funded out of Cohu’s existing cash reserves and the assumption of operating debt of USD 2.6 million net of cash acquired. Following the acquisition, Kita will continue to be led by its current senior management team, including President Tomohiko Kita, and will combine with Cohu’s ITS contactor business unit to deliver a broad portfolio of solutions to customers. Müller concluded “We are seeing opportunities to embed our thermal technology within contactors to better manage temperature and improve test yield. Kita offers an extensive portfolio of spring probes that are complementary to Cohu’s contactors and enable us to supply a total solution to our automotive and mobile customers. We expect this transaction to be accretive in 2017 and provide significant sales synergies.”