Welcome to Round 2 of the additive manufacturing merger games, though in this case, they look like a pale imitation of last year’s epic bouts.
Early Wednesday, July 3, Israeli 3D printing company Nano Dimension announced plans to buy metal AM specialists Desktop Metal for $183 million, a figure that could fall to $135 million during the evaluation process. Only 14 months ago, Stratasys, the largest company in the AM space, bid $1.8 billion for Desktop Metal.
Shareholders for both companies eventually rejected that deal. Nano Dimension was a big player in last year’s chaos, bidding to buy Stratasys while that company was trying to buy Desktop Metal.
When Stratasys launched its bid to acquire it, Desktop Metal stock was trading for about $23 per share, making it worth about $750 million in market capitalization. On Tuesday, before the Nano Dimension bid, it was trading for $4 per share, roughly $125 million in market capitalization.