GSI Group to Sell Continuum, Buy JADAK

March 14, 2014—In its March 11 fourth-quarter earnings call, OEM component supplier GSI Group (Bedford, Mass., U.S.A.) announced it had signed a letter of intent to sell its line of scientific lasers, Continuum, for $7.5 million in cash to an unnamed buyer. Continuum provides high energy YAG lasers, dye lasers, diode-pumped and ultrafast systems, as well as optical parametric oscillators and amplifiers for scientific and industrial applications. GSI claimed Continuum, based in San Jose, Calif., saw a sharp slowdown in scientific laser sales in the closing quarter of 2013. Continuum’s scientific laser business reported sales of $25 million for fiscal year 2013, which was 7 percent of GSI’s total $341.6 million in revenue, which was estimated as neutral to the GSI Group’s adjusted EBITDA.

The company also announced during the call a February 18^th agreement to acquire barcode scanning technology company JADAK, LLC (Syracuse, N.Y.) for $93.5 million in cash. JADAK also provides optical data collection and machine vision technologies, primarily to medical device manufacturers.  The acquisition of JADAK is expected to add roughly $40 million in revenue to GSI’s bottom line for the full year 2014.