GE to Buy Two Additive Manufacturing Firms for $1.4B

GE announced plans Tuesday for a $1.4 billion acquisition of two additive manufacturing equipment suppliers, Acram AB and SLM Solutions Group AG, as part of the Boston-based company’s plan to boost its additive business to $1 billion by 2020.

“Additive manufacturing is a key part of GE’s evolution into a digital industrial company. We are creating a more productive world with our innovative world-class machines, materials, and software. We are poised to not only benefit from this movement as a customer, but spearhead it as a leading supplier,” GE’s chairman and chief executive officer Jeff Immelt said in a statement. “Additive manufacturing will drive new levels of productivity for GE, our customers, including a wide array of additive manufacturing customers, and for the industrial world.”

Swedish company Acram AB, credited with inventing the electron beam melting machine for metal-based additive manufacturing, primarily serves the aerospace and healthcare industries and generated $68 million in revenues in 2015, according to a GE press release. SLM Solutions Group, headquarted in Germany, provides laser machines for metal-based additive manufacturing, serving customers in aerospace, healthcare, automotive, and energy. It brought in $74 million in revenues last year.

David Joyce, presently president and chief executive officer of GE Aviation, will lead the integration and growth of the two newly acquired businesses.

“We chose these two companies for a reason,” said Joyce in the statement. “We love the technologies and leadership of Arcam AB and SLM Solutions. They each bring two different, complimentary additive technology modalities as individual anchors for a new GE additive equipment business to be plugged into GE’s resources and experience as leading practitioners of additive manufacturing.”

GE said its additive manufacturing efforts will focus on Europe. Since 2010, the company has invested $1.5 billion in manufacturing and additive technologies. 

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