Agilent Technologies is an American public research, development and manufacturing company established in 1999 as a spin-off from Hewlett-Packard. The resulting IPO of Agilent stock was the largest in the history of Silicon Valley at the time.
The company provides analytical instruments, software, services and consumables for the entire laboratory workflow. Agilent focuses its products and services on six markets: food, environmental and forensics, pharmaceutical, diagnostics, chemical and energy, and research. From 1999 to 2014 the company also produced test and measurement equipment for electronics; that division was spun off to form Keysight.
Video Agilent Technologies
Operations
Based on 2003 information, Agilent maintained four locations in the San Francisco Bay area: San Jose, Santa Clara, Santa Rosa and Rohnert Park. Santa Clara is an R&D site, containing the Agilent Research Laboratories group. Based on 2006 information, Agilent maintained seven sites in China: an office in Beijing, and branches in Shanghai, Chengdu, Guangzhou, Shenyang, Shenzhen and Xi'an. Agilent also has several manufacturing facilities across Europe, most notably in Waldbronn Germany, Oxfordshire U.K. and Glostrup Denmark.
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Products and services
Agilent serves analytical laboratories and the clinical and routine diagnostics markets with a full suite of technology platforms. These include:
Agilent also provides the lab management services and chemistries and supplies needed to operate and optimize the science and economics of the lab:
History
Agilent Technologies was created in 1999 by the spin-off of Hewlett-Packard's (HP's) "Medical Products and Instrument Group", including instrumentation and chemical analysis, electronic component and medical equipment product lines. The split was predicated on the difficulty of growing HP's revenue stream and on the competitive vigor of smaller, more agile competitors. The company's launch slogan was "Innovating the HP Way", which capitalized on the strong HP corporate culture. The starburst logo was selected to reflect "a burst of insight" (or "spark of insight") and the name "Agilent" aimed to invoke the notion of agility as a trait of the new firm. The Agilent spin-off was accompanied by an initial public offering which raised $2.1 billion, setting a record at the time.
2000-2009
In the early 2000s, "economic uncertainty" depressed demand for Agilent's products, including slow sales of health care products to hospitals in the United States, which accounted for 60% of the company's revenue at the time. The downturn also struck sales in the communications and semiconductor markets, where orders amounting to $500 million were canceled by buyers. These poor economic conditions prompted large reductions in force; from a headcount in 1999 of 35,000, which had risen to 48,000 by May 2001, it had by early 2003 cut 18,500 positions. In 2001, in midst of this downsizing, Agilent sold its health care and medical products organization to Philips Medical Systems, and was noted as having a valuation of about $11 billion. HP Medical Products had been the second oldest part of Hewlett-Packard, acquired in the 1950s.
In August 2005, Agilent announced the sale of its semiconductor business, which produced chips for a wide range of consumer and industrial uses, to Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and Silver Lake Partners for $2.66 billion. This move was part of a broad effort to concentrate "on the test-and-measurement business at its historic core," and would entail termination of about 1,300 of the company's 28,000 employees. The group operated as a private company, Avago Technologies, until August 2009, when it was brought public in an IPO. After purchasing Broadcom Corporation in 2016, Avago changed its name to Broadcom Limited.
Also in August 2005, Agilent sold its 47% stake in the light-emitting diode manufacturer Lumileds to Philips for $1 billion. Lumileds originally started as Hewlett-Packard's optoelectronics division.
Also in August 2005, Agilent announced a plan to divest its semiconductor test solutions business, composed of both the system-on-chip and memory test market areas. Agilent listed the new company as Verigy, mid-2006 on NASDAQ.
2010 onwards
In 2009, Agilent announced the closure of a subsection of its Test & Measurement division. The product lines affected included the automated optical inspection, solder paste inspection, and automated X-ray products [5DX]. In 2004 Agilent reported that it had captured 19% of the $244 million (excluding Japan) global imaging inspection market. On July 27, 2009, Agilent announced they would buy Varian, Inc., for $1.5 billion. In November 2009, Agilent sold the N2X product line to IXIA. In February 2010 Agilent announced the selling of its Network Solutions Division to JDSU for $162 million.
In 2011, the company along with the University of California, Davis, announced that it would be establishing the "Davis Millimeter Wave Research Center". Agilent announced it would increase its life sciences engagement through the acquisition of Halo Genomics, based in Uppsala, Sweden, which was involved in next-generation sequencing technology development.
On May 17, 2012, Agilent agreed to buy Dako, a Danish cancer diagnostics company, for $2.2 billion, to expand its presence in the life sciences industry.
On September 19, 2013, Agilent announced its decision to separate into two publicly traded companies: Agilent life sciences, diagnostics, applied markets company, and an electronic measurement company. The life sciences company will retain the Agilent name and the electronic measurement company will be called Keysight Technologies. On October 14 the company announced that it is exiting its Nuclear Magnetic Resonance business. On November 1 the formal separation of Agilent and Keysight Technologies was completed. Agilent announced it has completed the spin-off of its electronic measurement business, Keysight Technologies. Keysight begins trading on the New York Stock Exchange today under the symbol KEYS. The separation was implemented through a spinoff of Keysight's common stock and is intended to be tax-free for U.S. federal income tax purposes. On Nov. 1, 2014, in a special dividend distribution of all outstanding shares of Keysight's common stock, Agilent shareholders received one share of Keysight common stock for every two shares of Agilent common stock held as of close of business Oct. 22, 2014.
Agilent celebrates its 50th anniversary in the analytical instruments market. Hewlett-Packard Co., Agilent's predecessor, acquired F&M Scientific Corp., maker of gas chromatographs, on Aug. 8, 1965. In September, the company announced it would acquire Seahorse Bioscience for $235 million.
On 7th of July 2016, Agilent announced that they had acquired U.K. based Cobalt Light Systems which develop and manufacture Raman spectroscopy instruments for £40 million in cash.
In January 2018, the company announced it would acquire Luxcel Biosciences, increasing the company's cell analysis portfolio.
Corporate governance
Agilent's inaugural president and chief executive officer was Ned Barnholt, and he retained this post at least through 2006. Barnholt had originally joined Hewlett-Packard in 1966.
In September 2014, William (Bill) Sullivan announced plans to retire as Agilent's CEO. Mike McMullen, then president of the company's Chemical Analysis Group, was to succeed Sullivan as CEO. As part of the succession plan announcement, McMullen was promoted to the roles of president and chief operating officer (COO).
In 2015, McMullen was elected by Agilent's board of directors to the post of CEO, becoming Agilent's third CEO.
Ownership
As of 2017 Agilent Technologies are mainly held by institutional investors (T. Rowe Price, BlackRock, Fidelity Investments, The Vanguard Group, State Street Corporation, and others)
See also
- Laboratory equipment
- Scientific instrument
Notes
References
Further reading
Books
- Leflar, James A. (2001). Practical TPM: Successful Equipment Management at Agilent Technologies. Portland, Oregon: Productivity Press. ISBN 9781563272424. OCLC 45493253 - via Google Books (preview).
News items
- Frank, Steve (10 September 2000). "Playing the Net". Santa Cruz Sentinel. Retrieved 2015-07-28 - via Newspapers.com.
Q: Last month I purchased shares of Agilent Technologies and the price has gone up and down since then. Are its future prospects solid?
External links
- http://www.agilent.com - Agilent Technologies official web site
- "History Links: HP, Agilent, EDS, Compaq, Tandem..." Hewlett-Packard Alumni Association, Inc. Retrieved 19 December 2014.
- "Patents assigned to Agilent". US Patent and Trademark Office. Retrieved 19 December 2014.
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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