Private Equity News & Analysis

Ratos purchases $240m digital imaging company(3)

Ratos has bought digital imaging company Contex from EQT after it had held the company for eight years.

-

Nordic buyout firm EQT and other investors have sold Contex, a 2D and 3D digital imaging company, to Ratos, a quoted private equity company, for $240 million.
Ratos has funded the deal with approximately $90 million of equity and it will acquire 100 percent of the company.

EQT previously had a 60 percent stake. Contex had sales of $122 million, EBITDA of $24 million and employed approximately 435 people in 2006.

EQT took Contex private in 1999. It has since shifted the businesses focus from solely the large format scanner market, to encompass 3D printers – machines that produce physical prototypes from computer-aided design (CAD) data – and medical imaging equipment, through the acquisitions of Z Corporation in 2005 and Vidar Systems Corporation in 2002.

 EQT’s spokesman said: “After making the Z corporation acquisition we felt it was right to continue as a owner and so we hung on to the company for longer than the usual five year period.”

Profitability at the company has gone up more than four times and revenues have gone up by fivefold during EQT’s ownership.