Teledyne Technologies has acquired FLIR Systems in a cash-stock transaction valued at approximately $8 billion. Teledyne specializes in instrumentation, digital imaging, aerospace and defense electronics, and engineered systems; FLIR focuses on intelligent sensing solutions for defense and industry, and is said to be the world’s largest commercial company specializing in the design and production of thermal imaging cameras, components and imaging sensors.

“At the core of both our companies is proprietary sensor technologies,” said Robert Mehrabian, Teledyne’s executive chairman, in a release from the company’s Thousand Oaks, California headquarters. “Our business models are also similar: we each provide sensors, cameras and sensor systems to our customers.” However, he continued, each company’s imaging sensors are based on different semiconductor technologies for different wavelengths, so the combined “technologies and products are uniquely complementary with minimal overlap.”

FLIR Chairman Earl Lewis agreed with the concept of “complementary technologies” as the key to continued growth. FLIR is headquartered in Wilsonville, Oregon.

An investor presentation reinforced this synergy, noting that the companies deliver “unique unmanned and autonomous systems serving different markets across air and land (FLIR) and subsea (Teledyne).”

Photo courtesy of Abe Peck.