Teradyne sells unit to Conn. company

Teradyne Inc. has agreed to sell its Nashua-based Teradyne Connection Systems subsidiary to Amphenol Corp. for $390 million.

The deal should be completed during the fourth quarter of this year.

“We are extremely excited about Teradyne, it is a perfect strategic fit,” Martin Loeffler, Amphenol’s chairman and chief executive officer, said during a conference call. “It will also create the third largest interconnection company in the world.”

Teradyne officials said they were selling the division to focus on their core business of making test equipment.

In 2004, the division made up 23 percent of Teradyne’s revenue. The Connection Systems unit has 2,200 employees, some 1,600 of them in Nashua.

Loeffler said the division’s management team will be kept in place and continue to run the business as a stand-alone organization, he said. There are no plans to consolidate the Connection Systems unit into any of Amphenol’s existing plants, he said.

In June 2001, Amphenol, which has about 16,000 employees, bought 5 percent of Connections Systems.

Amphenol, which is based in Wallingford, Conn., already owns another Nashua-based firm, Advanced Circuit Technologies, which it acquired in August 1998. – NHBR STAFF REPORT