Chris Schneidmiller
WC Monitor
12/11/2015
Nuclear waste cleanup technology specialist Kurion on Tuesday announced its third acquisition in four years – Oxford Technologies, a robotic systems maker based in the United Kingdom.
Oxford Technologies provides expertise and technology for remote handling, complex plant assembly, and operations in irradiated areas. Its remote tools have been used in nuclear decommissioning projects at Sellafield and Dounreay in the United Kingdom, among other projects, according to a Kurion press release.
The company will be incorporated into Kurion’s Robotic Systems & Services unit, which has produced more than 180 systems for projects globally, including a device for investigating damage to a reactor at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant following the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami.
Terms of the deal, which was several months in the making, were not released. It should not require government regulatory approval, according to Kurion founder and Vice Chairman John Raymont. Wrapping in Oxford Technologies’ staff, featuring over 60 engineers and project managers, will boost Kurion’s workforce to above 200, Raymont said.
“They certainly are a top-drawer company in their own right, and that was what attracted us to them,” Raymont said in a telephone interview. “They certainly do discriminating, leading-edge technologies. … But, quite honestly, what was more important to us is philosophically they’re very similar to our own group of robotics experts.”
Oxford Technologies co-founder and managing director Alan Rolfe will retire once the deal is complete but will stay on as a consultant. The company’s engineering director, Bernhard Haist, will take over as director for the Oxford Technologies team in the U.K. He will report to Matthew Cole, Kurion Robotics Systems & Services chief, who is moving to the United Kingdom to head up the company’s global remote systems program.
“We figured since he’s really the kind of the founder of our own business, and he knows it the best, arguably, and he has been the direct sponsor for this, it’s best to let him get over there and meet the people and understand the people and get to know them,” Raymont said of Cole. There is also likely to be some trading back and forth of personnel from Kurion’s robotics team in Colorado and the Oxford Technologies workforce, he added.
The acquisition follows Kurion’s purchase of Vista Engineering Technologies in January 2014 and the GeoMelt business from Impact Services Inc. in May 2012. The latest deal will “provide an established base of operations for our continued expansion in Europe,” Kurion CEO William Gallo said in the press release.
“They really are a great first step in terms of acquisition,” Raymont said, adding that he could not discuss details of any future deals.
