Motor Maker Purchases Georgia Firm : Transaction: Pacific Scientific in Newport Beach acquired Automation Intelligence Inc., a week after buying Powertec Industrial.
Pacific Scientific Co., a maker of electric motors, said Monday that it has bought a small Georgia company that writes computer programs for factory robots.
Automation Intelligence Inc., based near Atlanta, designs food-packaging machines for big companies. The acquisition is a good fit, Pacific Scientific said, because the automation systems that AI designs use the type of motors Pacific Scientific makes.
AI’s sales--after peaking at $6 million in 1991--slid to $3 million last year. The company said it was spending heavily to develop new software that it introduced this year.
Pacific Scientific said it paid a small sum for AI but would not be more specific.
The Newport Beach company has spent the last few years making itself over from a supplier of equipment to nuclear power plants--which are not being built anymore--to a maker of motors and other electric equipment for manufacturers.
But sales have been flat or down for the company for the last five years, falling from $181 million for 1988 to $173 million last year. That is partly because the company has sold off its losing businesses and those that no longer fit, one stock analyst said. And the company says its sales have picked up lately.
Recently the stock has languished on the New York Stock Exchange at well below its $16 high for the year.
“The picture for investors is confused because Pacific makes a lot of other stuff, like airplane seat belts and outdoor lighting,” said John C. Ball, who runs JBL/New England, a small stock research firm in Massachusetts. “That’s why it’s good they’re moving more toward electric equipment like motors, where they have a commanding market share for some types of motors.”
Nevertheless, investors didn’t seem too impressed with Monday’s deal. Pacific Scientific’s stock closed unchanged at $14.875 a share after the AI deal was announced.
That transaction follows by a week Pacific Scientific’s purchase of Powertec Industrial Group in Rock Hill, S.C., a company with $20 million in sales that makes some of the same kinds of motors as Pacific Scientific. “We are trying to get ourselves out of our image as a mini-conglomerate,” said Chairman Edgar S. Brower. “We’re trying to focus ourselves on businesses like Powertec and AI.”
