Bruker to acquire Center for Tribology

Bruker Corporation today announced the signing of a purchase agreement to acquire Center for Tribology, Inc. (CETR) for an undisclosed amount. CETR, a privately held corporation located in Silicon Valley in Campbell, CA, is projected to have calendar year 2011 revenue greater than $10 million and EBITDA greater than $2 million. The transaction is expected to close at the end of the third quarter of 2011, subject to customary closing conditions. After the closing, Bruker intends to continue to operate CETR in Silicon Valley and to integrate its business management, operations, research and development, sales and support with the Bruker Nano Surfaces division. It is anticipated that CETR will become a separate Tribology and Indenting business, joining the current AFM (atomic force microscope) and SOM (stylus and optical metrology) businesses in the Bruker Nano Surfaces division.

"CETR has been continuously and increasingly successful for nearly two decades in nanoindenting and microindenting, and in materials and tribology testing," said Mark R. Munch, Ph.D., President of the Bruker Nano Surfaces division. "We are delighted to add their synergistic core competencies to our own AFM and optical metrology expertise. CETR customers are interested in mechanically testing the structure property relationships as they relate to tribology and nano-mechanical properties just as Bruker Nano Surfaces division's current customers want to use microscopy and metrology to measure topography, and other surface properties."

"CETR has been providing customers a competitive edge with innovative indenting and tribology testing solutions for over fifteen years," remarked Norm V. Gitis, Ph.D., Founder, CEO and President of CETR. "We are pleased to bring our complete materials testing product lines to Bruker, whose stellar instrumentation reputation and worldwide sales and support structure will enable our technology to reach new regions and markets."

CETR products can perform multitudes of operations to characterize nano-, micro- and macro-mechanical and tribological properties under harsh environmental conditions (high and low temperatures and humidity, vacuum, gases, etc.), and have become the de facto standard for multiple industries and basic research around the world. CETR instruments have been successfully utilized in numerous academic labs for fundamental materials research and have been responsible for important breakthroughs in studies of thin films, as well as in numerous factories and plants for quality control of ink-jet cartridges, razor blades, industrial oils and many other industrial, medical and consumer products.