GE to acquire Concept Laser in $599 M deal
Staff
Additive Manufacturing Concept Laser GEFrank Herzog will continue as CEO of Concept Laser and will also assume a senior leadership position within GE.
GE has reached an agreement to acquire a 75% stake in Concept Laser GmbH for $599 million. The deal also allows for GE to fully take over the company in a few years.
The privately-held Concept Laser has more than 200 employees and is headquartered in Lichtenfels, Germany, and designs and manufacturers powder bed-based laser additive manufacturing machines.
Its customer base is focused on the aerospace, medical and dental industries, with a meaningful presence in automotive and jewelry. Concept Laser’s machine range incorporates both the largest and smallest build envelopes currently available on the market and are capable of processing various powder materials including titanium, nickel-base, cobalt-chromium and precious metal alloys, as well as hot-work and high-grade steels and aluminum.
“Concept Laser founder Frank Herzog and his team are true pioneers in metal laser melting technology,” said David Joyce, GE Vice Chairman and President & CEO of GE Aviation. “We are committed to enhancing Concept Laser’s technologies and product offerings across a well-established customer base.”
Herzog will continue as CEO of Concept Laser and will also assume a senior leadership position within GE.
GE has committed to invest significantly into Lichtenfels, which will continue to be Concept Laser’s headquarters and will become a new German center for GE. GE will retain Concept Laser’s management and employees.
“Concept Laser machines are being used by leading manufacturers of medical, aerospace and dental components in series production as well as for prototyping and design. We are hitting an inflection point in demand as customers increasingly understand the possibilities that additive manufacturing presents and the technology advances to be able to turn these possibilities into reality. With GE’s broader investment into additive manufacturing, we believe that this process will only accelerate,” said Herzog.
GE is a leading end user and innovator in the additive manufacturing space. GE has invested approximately $1.5 billion in manufacturing and additive technologies at GE’s Global Research Center (GRC), developed additive applications across six GE businesses and are pioneering services applications across the company.
GE Aviation introduced into airline service this year its first additive jet engine component – complex fuel nozzle interiors – with the LEAP jet engine. The LEAP engine is the new, best-selling engine from CFM International, a 50/50 joint company of GE and Safran Aircraft Engines of France. More than 11,000 LEAP engines are on order with 20 fuel nozzles in every engine, thus setting the stage for sustainably high and long-term additive production at GE Aviation’s Auburn, Alabama, manufacturing plant. Production will ramp up to more than 40,000 fuel nozzles using additive by 2020.
GE Aviation is also using additive manufacturing to produce components in its most advanced military engines. In the general aviation world, GE is developing the Advanced Turboprop Engine (ATP) for a new Cessna aircraft with a significant portion of the entire engine produced using additive manufacturing.
