Honeywell acquires struggling Intermec

Contact: Tejas Venkatesh

After forecasting 2013 growth below Wall Street expectations, Honeywell today announced the acquisition of RFID and retail systems provider Intermec Technologies for an enterprise value of $600m. The deal helps the diversified conglomerate add voice and barcode technologies, and bulks up its core scanning and mobile computing business.

Intermec hasn’t turned a profit since 2008 amid declining revenue. For the 12 months ended September 30, Intermec reported revenue of $810m, below its fiscal 2008 revenue of $891m. And six weeks ago, the company announced that it had retained Bank of America Merrill Lynch as its financial adviser. The deal values Intermec at 0.7x trailing sales, right in line with Motorola Solutions’ pickup of Psion in June for an enterprise value of $162m, or 0.6x trailing sales.

The acquisition is Honeywell’s fourth of 2012, according to The 451 M&A KnowledgeBase, and comes soon after the company forecasted 2013 growth below analysts’ expectations, due to defense cuts and slow economic growth. Honeywell projected 2013 revenue of $39-39.5bn, while analysts on average expect $39.4bn.

For more real-time information on tech M&A, follow us on Twitter @MAKnowledgebase.