Hewlett Packard Co has signed an agreement in principle for Celestica International Holdings Inc to acquire its Exeter, New Hampshire system assembly operation. Conditions of the sale have not been revealed, but it is thought it will be completed within the next couple of months. The Hewlett Packard site focuses on the integration and delivery of advanced workstations to Hewlett Packard customers across the world, and employees 400 people. The plant will continue to serve HP, but will be expanded to build products for other customers. Employees will be offered jobs with Celestica or given the opportunity to seek employment in other areas of Hewlett Packard. Paul Cohen, Celestica’s senior vice president of marketing and business development said he expects around 350 staff to remain in Exeter and work for Celestica. Hewlett Packard apparently decided last year it would be looking to contract out the manufacturing and assembly of its workstations, enabling it to concentrate on internal manufacturing resources. Cohen said he thought the plant was worth around $550m, from reports he had read. North York, Ontario-based Celestica was sold by the Canadian arm of IBM Corp last year (CI No 3,011) to Onex Corp. Shortly afterwards it was announced that Celestica would be going public, something which hasn’t happened yet, and that it was looking for acquisition opportunities in the US, Europe and Asia (CI No 3,013). Cohen said the company will be announcing something soon about the plans it has for Asia and Mexico. January saw Celestica purchase UK-based Design to Distribution Ltd (CI No 3,074) and it is currently in the process of buying another Hewlett Packard operation, the printed circuit board facility in Fort Collins, Colorado (CI No 3,138).
