Printed Circuit Board Assembly & PCB Design SMT Electronics Assembly Manufacturing Forum

Printed Circuit Board Assembly & PCB Design Forum

SMT electronics assembly manufacturing forum.


Dover Coporation selling Vitronics Soltec

Views: 4712

#43479

Dover Coporation selling Vitronics Soltec | 22 August, 2006

I've recently been told that Dover Corporation is selling the Vitronics Soltec division. Has anyone heard anything more about this? Our company is looking at buying a new wavesolder machine, but are hesitant with the news. Here is the release from their website.

http://www.vitronics-soltec.com/home/News/dover%2Dannouncement/

reply »

Chunks

#43481

Dover Coporation selling Vitronics Soltec | 22 August, 2006

More importantly, does this void WML education at Soltec College? If so, he would become mere mortal, right?

(Sorry Mark, Snakes On A Plane.... I know)

If you were seriously looking at Soltec, then an Electrovert wave should fit your every needs as well from a product stand point. Not sure about spare parts and service, since I don't know where you are.

reply »

#43487

Dover Coporation selling Vitronics Soltec | 22 August, 2006

I certainly would not buy off any product from a manufacturer that is for sale. Imagine they have known they were going to do this for some time now and all of the cost cutting and apathy that is occuring at this time does not bode well for their customers.

Vitronics has/had a very good reputation for their reflows over the years but with all of the Chinese companies copying their machines and the push to replace ovens due to ROHS about over, it's probably a good time to get out while the gettin's somewhat good.

For wave and oven manufacturers looking ahead......it probably takes them 3-4 years to sell what they just sold in the past one year.

reply »

#43522

Dover Coporation selling Vitronics Soltec | 23 August, 2006

Vitronics Soltec isn't all that is on the seller's block.

reply »

#43549

Dover Coporation selling Vitronics Soltec | 24 August, 2006

Let's play a game and see if anyone can guess the companies up for sale.

My guess would be Universal and/or Assembleon.

Did I win?

reply »


RDR

#43551

Dover Coporation selling Vitronics Soltec | 24 August, 2006

All except for DEK!!!!!

Russ

reply »

#43586

Dover Coporation selling Vitronics Soltec | 25 August, 2006

The reason I heard is that Dover will go for the mid -90:s popular expression "core business". They will sell out UIC and everything, except DEK. (This is correct Russ). UIC and many others of them still make profit but not as good as DEK.

This however does not necessarily mean a bad thing for us customers. If the right buyer is there, it could actually benefit us since these companies could focus more and do more investigations for the future etc. We just have to wait and see, I guess. Don't forget that DEK, UIC, Soltec, Vitronics, etc. just was "their own" in the beginning like the rest of them, long before Dover Corp. came into the picture. /Regards,

reply »

Ola

#43595

Dover Coporation selling Vitronics Soltec | 26 August, 2006

Base

#43606

Dover Coporation selling Vitronics Soltec | 28 August, 2006

I guess it is a generic thing that happens after every down-cycle. If things went bad for a while the umbrella-corporations such as Dover and nowadays also Philips will sell the parts that didn't help them get back up again. So Dover sells their SMT stuff, Philips kicks out their semiconductor branch and I wouldn't be surprised if others followed. I guess the big post-war shake-out is starting to materialize. I've heard that even Siemens is pulling out of the ultra-high volume market due to price-pressure...

And as far as "don't buy stuff from vendors that are kicked out" I second Mika's opinion that there is no reason to panic. Not buying their stuff because they might go out of business is the ultimate self-fulfilling prophecy and only drives us all in the hands of 2 or 3 giants that have the backup to survive this sort of scaredy-cat behavior. (Think about it: if it concerned companies from your own country you'd be encouraging everyone to buy their goodies in order to keep them alive, or has that gone out the window with the recent Ford and GM hiccups)

reply »

#43631

Dover Coporation selling Vitronics Soltec | 28 August, 2006

Sure Base....go ahead and trust your company's livelihood to make money on a vendor that is either going out of business or is on the block to be sold.

These are not cars or luxury items of convenience we are talking about here. In many if not all cases, the decision to choose a particular vendor of manufacturing equipment will be the most important decision a company makes.

To write off the fact a particular vendor is up for sale as trivial would be highly ignorant.

What happens when a company becomes a company "for sale" anyways? Let's see....staff is whacked including support. Wages are frozen or reduced leading to apathy by anyone stupid enough to stick around. Costs are dramatically cut in an effort to increase the bottom line etc. And you still would consider buying products from a company in such a state of affairs huh?

reply »

Cmiller

#43719

Dover Coporation selling Vitronics Soltec | 1 September, 2006

I believe that the reason Dover did not sell Dek is not so much based on its actual profitability but because the profits it does make are stable. I think Dek makes about 60% or its revenue on stencils and other consumables that are still in demand regardless of economic cycles. Remember MPM? They got sold a few years ago for what, ten million? Rigth when the economy was picking up? Over a ten year span they made a killing but there will be some really bad years in this business. Dover is making a huge mistake selling these companies as the economy is improving, demand for new equipment is high and supply of late model used equipment is low.

reply »

#43725

Dover Coporation selling Vitronics Soltec | 1 September, 2006

I agree Craig and I'm also not convinced DEK is really doing that well. I know they sell a ton of printers into Asia at around a 30%-40% discount to what they sell them anywhere else. A classic case of grabbing market share at the expense of profitability.

They also remind me of the old Autosplice days when they would give away their thru-hole socket pin inserters for free.........and then charge you up the ying yang for the pins. Or was it Berg that did that?

Man has that been 26 years ago now?

reply »

Cmiller

#43728

Dover Coporation selling Vitronics Soltec | 1 September, 2006

Rick, I think Autosplice and Berg did that but of course, it was a little before my time. But the comparison is the same as what HP does with injet printers and the ink cartridges which for some reason made me think of a screen printer someone made that was like an ink-jet and did not use stencils. Wasn't that Mydata? I cant remember, it was not that long ago, maybe last year I heard about it. A little off the subject but I wonder what happened to that. That could screw up Dek's stencil buisiness, maybe Dover should sell them too!

reply »

One stop service for all SMT and PCB needs

Reflow Oven