Bruker Corporation has signed an agreement to acquire the Scanning Probe Microscopy (SPM) and Optical Industrial Metrology (OIM) instruments business from Veeco Instruments, Inc. for $229 million in cash. The transaction has been approved by the Boards of Directors of both companies and is expected to close during the fourth quarter of 2010, pending regulatory review and subject to customary closing conditions.

The worldwide SPM and OIM instruments business to be acquired by Bruker from Veeco consists of the SPM instruments business based in Santa Barbara, CA, USA, and leading OIM product lines developed in Tucson, AZ, USA, as well as Veeco's associated global SPM/OIM field sales and support organisation.

The combined SPM and OIM instruments business is forecasted to contribute revenues of greater than $130 million, and adjusted operating margins (excluding related acquisition, restructuring, relocation and non-cash intangible amortisation expenses) of greater than 15% to Bruker in the year 2011. The Veeco SPM and OIM instruments business in 2009 geographically derived its revenues approximately 38% from Asia–Pacific, 31% from the Americas and 31% from Europe, and in terms of customer type approximately 45% from applied/industrial customers and 55% from academic/government customers.

After the closing of the acquisition, Bruker intends to continue to operate the SPM and OIM instruments business in California and Arizona. Bruker expects to retain the vast majority of the present SPM and OIM business management, operations, research and development, sales and marketing, as well as global applications and service personnel, and to integrate the SPM and OIM division's international field sales and support staff with Bruker's existing country sales offices, applications laboratories and service centres worldwide.

Frank H. Laukien, Bruker President and CEO, commented: "Veeco's SPM and OIM systems fit perfectly into Bruker's high-performance scientific instruments strategy, and are highly complementary to our existing product portfolio. We believe that this acquisition will expand the total addressable market segments for our materials and nanotechnology research and analysis systems to over two billion dollars annually. Moreover, we believe this acquisition represents an excellent opportunity for Bruker to deploy its strong balance sheet, and we expect the acquisition to be accretive to both our GAAP and adjusted EPS in 2011."

Dr Laukien continued: "We are very impressed by the recent turnaround in the Veeco SPM and OIM instruments business, which was accomplished primarily through significant investment in research and development, and a drive for operational excellence and margin improvement. This successful initiative has resulted in an impressive array of novel, proprietary technologies and innovative, customer-oriented products in the last two years. We are looking forward to having the capable SPM and OIM instrument teams in California, Arizona and in the international field organisation join Bruker after the closing. Most importantly, we are looking forward to welcoming the customers of the present Veeco SPM and OIM products to Bruker. We are very committed to providing the highest level of applications support and technical service, as well as continued applications and product development to this customer base."

John Peeler, Chief Executive Officer of Veeco, stated "The agreement to sell the SPM and OIM instruments division to Bruker will allow Veeco to focus on further expanding our LED, solar and data storage Process Equipment businesses. We are pleased that Bruker, one of the world's leading scientific instruments companies, will continue our SPM and OIM instruments businesses with a strong commitment to customer support and innovation."

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