Rochester Instrument bought by Pa. company

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A Pennsylvania firm has acquired Rochester Instrument Systems Inc. for $19 million.
Ametek Inc. acquired Rochester Instrument last month in a cash deal. The local company employs 180 staffers at a plant on Union Street. It had been owned by the Chicago-based Marmon Group.
In the same deal, Ametek acquired the Rochester firm’s Irish research and development facility and some manufacturing lines at a 200-worker Scottish plant.
Ametek is running the Scottish manufacturing lines separately from the Rochester plant. The rest of the Scottish facility remains under Marmon Group, said Ametek spokesman William Burke.
Gerald Schaefer, formerly Rochester Instrument president, continues to run the Rochester facility as plant manager, Burke said.
Rochester Instrument’s former U.K. operations together employ 20 to 30 staffers, he said. Ametek has yet to decide how they will be integrated.
Founded in 1971, Rochester Instrument designs and manufactures measurement instruments used in power plants and electricity transmission.
Ametek (NYSE: AME), based in Paoli, Pa., consists of two groups. Its electronic-instrument group makes monitoring and display devices for the aerospace, heavy vehicle and process industries. Its electric-motor group makes vacuum cleaner motors and brushless motors used in a variety of industries.
Rochester Instrument is the fourth firm Ametek has added to its instrument group in the past year. The Ametek electronic-instrument group contributed $256 million to the company’s $511.3 million in sales in the first half of 2000.
Rochester Instrument’s 1999 revenues totaled approximately $33 million, Burke said.
Ametek president and CEO Frank Hermance said, “(I saw) attractive growth opportunities for the (Rochester Instrument) business.”
Utility deregulation is spurring new power-plant construction in the United States, while developing countries are continuing to invest in new electric-power infrastructure, he said. Existing U.S. utilities will need new monitoring instruments as they transition to a new role as operators of transmission networks that buy power from a more diverse base of generators.
In the early 1990s, Rochester Instrument made, but ultimately abandoned, plans to move its local operations to a new facility in Wayne County.
Burke said it is too soon to say if Ametek would make significant changes at Rochester Instrument.
“We’re still acclimatizing ourselves to the acquisition,” he said.
Ametek CEO Hermance, 51, has some ties to Rochester. He holds graduate and undergraduate degrees from the Rochester Institute of Technology, and is a former Taylor Instruments Inc. executive. Hermance has been with Ametek 10 years.

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