Business Development Asia advises Materion on acquisition of EIS Optics in China

Business Development Asia LLC (“BDA”) is pleased to announce that its client, Materion Corporation (NYSE:MTRN; “Materion”), one of the world’s premier advanced materials companies, has acquired EIS Optics Limited from a group of financial investors including Fleming Family & Partners and Nova Capital Management Limited. Consideration for the transaction was approximately US$24 million.

EIS Optics is a leading producer of optical thin film filters, glass processing, lithography and optical subassemblies that enable precision management of light in a broad range of end-use applications throughout the projection display, entertainment lighting, sensors, medical instruments and gaming industries. Among other products, EIS Optics is the world’s largest manufacturer of color wheels for color splitting in field sequential lighting management in digital production, video production and video imaging.

EIS Optics operates a modern, manufacturing site in Shanghai, China that includes state-of-the-art clean rooms with vacuum deposition or sputter systems, and adjacent processes, including assembly. Together with its additional subsidiaries in Japan and Korea, EIS Optics serves a variety of customers active in the electronic products supply chain across the Asia-Pacific region and beyond. EIS Optics thus provides Materion with an Asian manufacturing base that will enable it to better serve its rapidly growing Asian optical coatings businesses.

Richard J. Hipple, Chairman of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer of Materion, commented: “We are very pleased to welcome our new associates in Shanghai and continue the transformation of the Materion organization by further broadening our advanced materials technology base and product portfolio. The integration of the EIS Optics manufacturing facility in Shanghai and its talented and dedicated workforce into Materion provides a promising platform for future growth and immediately widens our geographic reach, value add services, and optical materials capabilities in fast-growing global markets.”

BDA acted as the exclusive financial advisor to Materion on the transaction, having identified the opportunity and initiated the approach to the shareholders of EIS Optics earlier this year. BDA’s familiarity with both the advanced manufacturing sector and the global private equity space combined with its cross-border M&A expertise to achieve a successful result with a compelling strategic rationale.

Euan Rellie remarked:  “This is a small but highly strategic transaction. EIS is a great fit for Materion, which brings compelling synergies. We were glad to be able to help a high quality client to find and acquire a well run, Western-owned asset in China. BDA is uniquely placed for this kind of work. We have tracked EIS for several years, even before Nova and FF&P acquired it, allowing us to understand clearly the motivation of the various parties, and maximise the chance of closing a successful transaction.”

BDA Deal Team
Euan Rellie, Senior Managing Director, New York
Mark Webster, Managing Director, Shanghai
Kent Ng, Assistant Director, Shanghai
Tanya Wang, Senior Associate, Shanghai
Kevin Song, Associate, Shanghai

About Materion
Materion Corporation supplies highly engineered advanced enabling materials to leading and dynamic technology companies across the globe. Its product offerings include precious and non-precious specialty metals, precision optical filters, inorganic chemicals and powders, specialty coatings and engineered clad and plated metal systems. Its products, services and expertise help enable its customers’ technologies. It supplies sophisticated thin film coatings for hard disk drives, specialty inorganic chemicals for solar energy panels, bio-compatible materials for implantable medical devices, specialty alloys for miniature consumer electronics components, optical filters for thermal imaging, critical components for infrared sensing technology, special materials for LEDs and much more. Founded in 1931 and headquartered in Mayfield Heights, OH, the company today serves customers in more than 50 countries with operating, service center and major office locations throughout North America, Europe and Asia and employs approximately 2,500 people worldwide.

For further information about Materion and its businesses, please visit www.materion.com