French cabling and interconnector systems supplier Axon Cable acquires ISA France, following a commercial court decision in Besançon on 21 December 2016.
Located in Villers-le-Lac, near the Swiss border in France, Isa France joined the Axon group 1 January and was renamed Axon Nanotec SAS.
Previously, the main shareholder of the company was the Chinese manufacturer of watches and watch mechanisms Chung Nam which was also ISA France’s main customer and represented two-thirds of its €7.5m turnover.
“To save money during the current watchmaking crisis, Chung Nam stopped placing all orders on ISA France since September which caused the company to file for bankruptcy on 5 October 2016,” said an Axon statement.
Axon, a long-term partner for ISA France which supplies shells for its space connectors, placed a bid to the Besançon commercial court along with another medium-sized expert in plastics micro injection moulding, VP Plast.
ISA FRANCE has also designed machines for micro-assembling of space micro-D and nano-D connectors. AXON’ was very concerned by the risk that this supplier of strategic components could disappear. Consequently AXON’ prepared a takeover plan.
The court decided on 21 December that Axon could take over the business.
Axon said it planned to employ 45 out of the 74 employees at ISA France.
ISA France’s original core business in the design and manufacture of miniature watch parts with expertise in cutting, injection and assembling micro and nano-technologies.
The expertise in micro-technologies, said Axon, is particularly interesting for the group as miniaturisation is a key requirement of the space market.