The Hampshire Company, a Brown Deer-based designer and manufacturer of touch screens controls used for industrial devices, cash registers, medical machinery and even Las Vegas-style slot machines, has been acquired by Microchip Technology Inc., an Arizona microcontroller and semiconductor maker.
Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. Milwaukee-based Cleary Gull Inc. acted as financial advisor to The Hartford Company.
Carl Bauman and Jerry Hanauer, founders of The Hampshire Co. have stayed on with the acquisition. Bauman has a six month employment agreement and Hanauer has a two year agreement and will serve as senior research and development staff engineer. Carol Crawford, the company’s director, has also been retained for two years.
The acquisition was largely due to the explosion in demand for touch screen related products since Apple’s iPhone was released.
"Since it hit the market, touch screens have gone through the roof," Bauman said. "It created a huge demand from handheld (devices) to kiosks and games. Microchip realized that owning our technology would allow them to capture a new market."
Being acquired by Microchip, which is traded on the NASDAQ board under the symbol MCHP, will allow The Hampshire Company to take part in the global demand for its touch screens, Bauman said.
"The market grew so quickly and globally that we didn’t have the people here to react," he said. "Microchip is a huge company. Their competitors are getting into the market, and this gave them a leg up to get into the market overnight."
The Hampshire Company has 18 employees, and all of them have been retained, Bauman said. Microchip has indicated that it will add new engineers and technical staff in Milwaukee, but Bauman did not know how many or when they might be hired.
The company uses a network of suppliers in and around Milwaukee to manufacture its products. Bauman believes those supplier relationships will remain in place after the acquisition.
"We may add global suppliers, but for our existing customers and products I think it will stay the same," he said.
With its acquisition of The Hampshire Co., Microchip will likely expand the markets that the company’s products are sold into.
"Microchip’s acquisition puts it in the league where it can supply portable electronic products like GPS (locating units), MP3 players, and laptop, tablet and desktop computers," Bauman said.
