Matrikon acquires Hunter Control

-- Control Engineering, 10/1/2002

Edmonton, Alberta, Canada-Matrikon Inc. announced Sept. 25 that is has completed its acquisition of Hunter Control Pty. Ltd., one of Australia's largest independent automation and information system integration companies. Matrikon reports that it exchanged approximately 500,000 shares, roughly $1 million in Canadian dollars, for all of Hunter's issued and outstanding shares. Hunter Control will be renamed Matrikon Pty. Ltd.

Matrikon reports that significant synergies exist between the companies, and that Hunter's engineering services closely mirror Matrikon's services. Hunter's products, including its advanced control technology, UNAC, are complementary technologies that fit within the framework of Matrikon's solutions. In addition, Hunter has been Matrikon's Australian product distributor for over a year and its employees are trained on Matrikon's products.

By combining the two firms' technologies, resources, geography and domain expertise, Matrikon adds it is positioned to broaden its advanced control offering, and plans to build a mining industry solution suite to meet growing demand for optimization solutions that reduce production costs. In addition, Matrikon will be able to accelerate market penetration in the Australian and Asian markets.

'With this acquisition, along with our ramped up office in the Middle East, Matrikon is well positioned to tackle the Asian and Middle East markets where we believe there is tremendous growth potential,' says Amin Rawji, Matrikon's executive vp. 'Matrikon is now a truly global company with a global presence.'

Control Engineering Daily News Desk
Jim Montague, news editor
jmontague@reedbusiness.com