Japanese group buys out hi-tech Greek firm

Arizona-based Greek-owned company Roboteq has become a consolidated subsidiary of Japan’s Nidec, one of the world’s biggest manufacturers of electric motors.

Roboteq, which has a research and development center in Greece, was bought out last week by the Japanese giant, raising the prospects of hirings at Koropi in eastern Attica.

“The R&D department we launched in Athens in November last year will be the winner after this transaction,” Cosma Pabouctsidis, founder and chief executive of Roboteq, told Kathimerini. “The R&D center was a very important factor in Nidec’s valuation of Roboteq, and we already have approval to hire six engineers,” he added. Greg Levine, the president of Nidec Motion Control, told Kathimerini, “We aim to increase the number of engineers from eight today to 25 by the end of 2020.”

The Nidec group supplies some of the biggest firms in the world with a range of products, from hard disc motors to electric motors, installed in robots or even in cars. “Nidec employs some 100,000 workers globally, but has very few motor controllers, which are placed in electrical motors and make robots’ wheels move. None of its motor controllers has the capacity that ours do,” said Pabouctsidis.

Source: ekathimerini.com