This is old news, but thought you might be interested.
From the November 3, 1997 Issue of Electronic News
The Antenna
OH, TO BE A FLY ON THEIR WALL--The wall being that of Applied Intelligent Systems, Inc.'s (AISI) boardroom. Just as the privately-held Ann Arbor, Mich.-based machine vision company was crossing t's and dotting i's to an $85 million merger agreement with Electro Scientific Industries (ESI), Cognex complicated matters by upping the ante with its own, $20 million richer offer. At that time, Joe Reinhart, VP of business development at ESI, said, "We have a signed agreement to acquire Applied Intelligent Systems, AISI, and in fact are proceeding on the basis of that signed agreement with the various events that have to occur to close the transaction...That whole process is under way at this point." However, no word from ESI has crossed the wires in the last three weeks, and the company is not talking. For that matter, neither AISI nor Cognex have had anything to say on the status of the deal or competing proposal. Should AISI chose to scuttle its ESI deal, the company would have to fork over $3 million to ESI for the privilege. But Cognex has sent AISI a signed contract to ease any skepticism regarding the $3 million burden, so that seems to be a non-issue. Whether ESI and Cognex are engaged in a bidding war over AISI is up for specualtion and remains to be seen. Only the closing price will reveal just how far, if at all, the bar was raised. Stay tuned.... |
