Night-vision company Flir sells for $8B to Teledyne
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — California-based Teledyne Technologies will buy the Oregon thermal-imaging company Flir for $8 billion in cash and stock.
The deal announced Monday means the loss of another Oregon tech company as a string of major businesses in the state have sold to larger corporations elsewhere over the past 15 years. Flir’s sale leaves Hillsboro-based Lattice Semiconductor and Beaverton’s Digimarc Corp. as Oregon’s last publicly traded tech companies, The Oregonian/OreonLive reported.
Flir makes thermal-imaging and night-vision technology for the military, domestic security and various industrial and consumer applications. The 4,300-employee company moved its executive team to a second headquarters in Virginia in 2019 but still has about 350 employees in Wilsonville, Oregon.
The deal’s value immediately declined by about $36 million because Teledyne’s shares fell 9% in early trading Monday as its investors reacted negatively to the transaction and to the California company’s fourth-quarter financial results.
Oregon’s roster of tech headquarters has steadily eroded over the last 15 years, with a string of major businesses selling to larger corporations elsewhere. While technology employment has continued to grow during that stretch, no big new tech companies have emerged in Oregon to replace those that sold.
To the extent Flir is still an Oregon company, Monday’s sale price is by far the largest sum ever paid for one of the state’s technology businesses, the newspaper reported. When Mentor Graphics Corp. sold in 2017, Siemens paid $4.5 billion. FEI Co. sold a year earlier for $4.2 billion.
Teledyne, Flir’s new owner, makes an array of sensor technologies for the industrial and defense markets. The California company said it has little direct overlap with Flir’s product portfolio and expects “complementary” technologies and “an optimized capital structure” will boost Teledyne’s profits.
Teledyne’s shares fell in early trading Monday to $357.01. The California company’s sales topped $3 billion last year, according to preliminary fourth-quarter results issued Monday.
