Founded in 1982, Imaje was one of the first companies to develop continuous inkjet printers and proprietary inks for industrial marking and coding applications. In the beginning, Imaje targeted the food and beverage markets, but as time passed and its expertise grew, Imaje expanded its product offerings to include more varied marking and coding applications, and to serve other sectors.

As a result of growing market opportunities, Imaje rapidly planned and carried out a two-part strategy. First, it expanded its geographical coverage in terms of subsidiaries (32 across 120 countries), resulting in increased customer proximity, while investing to increase production capacity and logistics platforms on every continent. Second, Image sought to strengthen its global marking and coding product offering via the acquisition of strategic technologies. Dover strongly supported Imaje’s strategy at the time of acquisition.

Since the creation of the Product Identification Platform in 2003, Imaje’s development opportunities have further expanded, strengthening the company’s competitive position in the marking and coding sector.

Joining Dover
By early 1995, the Credit Lyonnais Group (financial owner of Imaje) was being pressed by the French government to divest its industrial holdings. The group of banks decided to sell Imaje via a classic auction. At the time of the auction, management and the company’s founders held about a 30 percent equity interest in Imaje and retained a strong voice in determining the winning bidder. Since most shareholders were financial investors, however, it was inevitable that monetary considerations would be a major factor in the final decision.

Dover was able to satisfy the interests and concerns of all the parties involved. The management team, led by Albert Journo, and the founding shareholders, represented by Jean-Claude Millet, were very concerned about the identity of the new owner. They had worked hard to build the company and then turn it around. Now they wanted to help Imaje become the number-one market leader worldwide. Worried that a debt burden would be imposed if the company were acquired by financial buyers, these company leaders also feared that a strategic buyer or competitor might break up the synergistic structure they had so carefully crafted.

Dover was an ideal fit for Imaje’s financial backers as well. Although the financial shareholders naturally sought the highest price for Imaje, they were sensitive to the legitimate concerns of the management team responsible for turning the company around. And since the proposed transaction was very high profile, especially within French banking circles, it was important that it be carried forward with as few setbacks as possible.

Dover emerged as the ideal buyer from every standpoint. Management was offered the opportunity to continue to run the company, and funds were available for future growth investment. Financing was not an issue. Dover’s acquisition strategy was clear and straightforward, and the negotiators appreciated its long track record of successful transactions.

The Early Years with Dover
Imaje joined Dover as a stand-alone company in 1995. Journo remained the company president for the ensuing four years. In an orderly transition, Journo departed to pursue personal interests and was succeeded by Omar Kerbage, who defined and implemented a new growth strategy. Upon Kerbage’s arrival, the company switched from a single technology and product offering (continuous inkjet) to a more solutions-oriented strategy that embraced multiple technologies in its printer offering (including software, consumables, and services). This vision has proven to be a strong differentiating element in the marking and coding market. The implementation of the strategy led to organic growth initiatives and selective acquisition actions.

In 2001, Imaje acquired Adhoc (a French-based expert in customized traceability solutions) and opened a software center in Bangalore, India. The same year, Imaje acquired Markpoint, a Swedish manufacturer of large character inkjet printers and print/apply systems.

In 2002, Imaje acquired Eurocodic, a Spanish company that specialized in thermal transfer coders. In 2005, Imaje purchased Fas-Co, a U.S.-based high-resolution ink-jet printer manufacturer (Piezo drop-on-demand ink-jet technology).
Imaje’s customer intimacy policy has led the management team to invest in five international manufacturing and logistic platforms that support customer proximity worldwide. With the creation of the Shanghai platform, this strategy was completed. In line with its overall customer intimacy policy, Imaje deployed a new ERP in 2007, allowing it to manage in real-time all of its operations worldwide.

The Product Identification Investment Strategy
The new century brought an acceleration of Dover’s investment in the product identification arena with the objective of uniting a group of world-class companies that specialized in it. The Dover Product Identification Platform would come to embrace a wide range of products and services that cover all of the leading technologies and applications within the dynamic product identification market.
2004: Datamax Acquisition

With the acquisition in 2001 of Markpoint, a small barcode printer product line focused on niche applications, Imaje moved into the adjacent barcode printer segment of the overall marking and coding market.

By 2003, Imaje management and Dover had developed a strategic road map to target other product identification market segments. Moving into the broader barcode printer segment was considered the wisest choice; this strategic move materialized with the acquisition of Datamax in 2004.

Datamax Corporation, based in Orlando, Florida, is a major player in the global barcode printer market. Among the attractive attributes of Datamax are:

• Its range of technologically advanced printer and software products, supported by a team with world-class design and engineering skills;ts strong brand name;

• Its strong brand name;

• Its broad end-user base across numerous industries, also expanding downstream from the manufacturing industries where coding is used into logistics and warehouse applications;

• The recurring revenue generated from its large installed base; and

• Its active investment in RFID technologies.

The Datamax sale process was similar to Imaje’s. Since 1993, Datamax had been 100 percent owned by a private equity firm, Liberty Capital. Prior to the sale, William Bouverie, president since 2002, had led the company through a comprehensive turnaround focused on exercising price power and bringing innovative products to the market. Bouverie had also built an experienced senior management team to support this effort. In choosing Dover, Liberty was able to find good return on its investments while keeping the management team intact. Since the acquisition, Datamax and Imaje have deployed synergies in terms of technology and in the sharing
of worldwide logistics platforms.

2006: O’Neil Acquisition
In 2006, Dover acquired O’Neil Printer Development, Inc., a small entrepreneurial company based in Irvine, California, and founded in 1981. It is the number-two player in the niche market of rugged portable printers that are used for receipt or label printing in a wide variety of applications, such as direct store delivery, retail, manufacturing, law enforcement, health care, public transport, and an extensive array of businesses and services.

The portable printer market is a market niche with high technology content. It is at the forefront of new trends and technologies for the barcode printer market, involving enterprise mobility solutions and wireless communication systems.

O’Neil printers share the same core printing technology as Datamax printers. In addition to this, O’Neil also has good recurring revenues thanks to its special tickets and labels.

The founder of the company, Tim O’Neil, was the only equity owner. He played a significant role in managing product development and led the company to a significant position in North America with good brand recognition and a solid product offering. O’Neil wanted to find a stable new owner to support further growth and sustain expansion into other international markets. O’Neil saw great opportunities in Dover. The acquisition would allow the Irvine team to remain independent enough to manage Dover’s portable printer business while guaranteeing them a future role in Dover’s broader Product Identification Platform.

2006: MARKEM Acquisition
In 2006, Dover acquired the MARKEM Corporation. MARKEM, a privately owned New Hampshire company, is a leading global player in the marking and coding market, with a strong proprietary position in several key technologies including thermal transfer on-line and hot melt ink-jet.

Founded in 1911, MARKEM was owned and managed by the Putnam family for five generations. MARKEM’s headquarters are located in Keene, New Hampshire, and its manufacturing plants are located in the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Czech Republic. Its R&D facilities are located in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Belgium. It has sales and service subsidiaries in 16 countries and distributors and agents in another 50 countries.

For Dover, merging MARKEM with Imaje was a great opportunity; MARKEM complemented Imaje’s market position and created the number-one supplier to the marking and coding market. Moreover, the combination had the broadest product portfolio able to offer the complete range of customer solutions with the scale to fund industry-leading R&D initiatives.

“MARKEM is a strong brand, and we fully intend to retain this and find a way to serve our global customers in an efficient manner while leveraging our other strong brands and technologies—Imaje, Datamax, and O’Neil,” commented Bob Livingston, president of Dover’s Engineered Systems segment.

Summary
There are three key elements that underline Dover’s strategy in the acquisitions of Imaje, O’Neil, Datamax, and MARKEM.

• Common culture and business models: all of these companies have a history of investing in both technological innovation and brand positioning, and each has a good balance of equipment and recurring revenue.

• Customer-centric, flexible operations: all of these companies have established global networks to serve their customers needs and to avail themselves of lower cost opportunities.

• Synergy potential: in addition to complementing the geographic strengths of each company, the Product Identification Platform strategy is to present customers with the broadest choice of technologies that can be customized to their specific application needs.
  

Dover strongly believes the Product Identification Platform will continue to grow by exploring new opportunities that support the strategic elements described above, and through its leadership initiatives to meet customer demands in this dynamic market.