Camtronics Medical Systems is bought by Alabama company

Camtronics Medical Systems is bought by Alabama company

Hartland, Wis.Camtronics Medical Systems, Inc., a maker of cardiology information and imaging systems, has been acquired by Emageon Inc., of Birmingham, Alabama, for $40 million in cash.
Emageon makes digital image management systems for radiologists. The purchase gives each company an entrée into the other’s market, said John W. Thompson, president of Thompson Investment Management in Madison and an Emageon board member.
Camtronics currently markets to 350 hospitals, and Emageon markets to 250, so the acquisition more than doubles Emageon’s customer base, according to the company.
Emageon bought the company from Analogic Corp., of Peabody, Mass., which designs and makes health and security systems. The purchase included its corporate headquarters in Hartland, valued at $7 million.
The purchase price was relatively low when compared with Camtronics $38 million in revenue for the year ending July 31. In 2004, accounting problems had dogged the company and jeopardized the Nasdaq stock market listing of its former parent Analogic. “It was a good price because Camtronics was, in a way, damaged merchandise,” Thompson said. “But what is a big negative is not a negative for Emageon.”
Camtronics, formed in 1986, has about 165 employees in Hartland, according to company president Dan Webster. Emageon has a Madison location with 50 employees.
The purchase will allow the merger of the two companies’ sales forces and could possibly bring jobs to Wisconsin, Thompson said. “There’s talk of using the [Hartland] facility more extensively for assembling the Emageon product, and also for more engineering people to be under one roof,” he said.
Chuck Jett, Emageon’s Chairman and CEO, said that the addition of Camtronics to Emageon’s enterprise solution completes the next phase in Emageon’s vision to provide comprehensive, standards-based content management, workflow, and advanced visualization to healthcare facilities.