AVL sells Piezocryst to Spectris PLC

AVL List GmbH announces the sale of its subsidiary Piezocryst Advanced Sensorics GmbH, a leading provider of highly specialised Piezo-sensor solutions, to the listed company Spectris PLC. Spectris PLC is a UK company specialising in the manufacture of precision measuring instruments and systems. Despite the change of ownership, AVL will remain closely linked to Piezocryst through a strategic partnership, both as a customer and as an innovation and distribution partner.

Graz, 5 September 2024: The decision to sell is part of a long-term strategy that will enable Piezocryst to strengthen its position in a dynamic market environment, place technologies in a broader market and in new segments and continue to drive significant technological developments.

Piezocryst is characterised by differentiated technologies and a high level of development and production expertise and has developed into an extremely successful and profitable company. In order to better realise the full potential of Piezocryst, partnerships were sought and the decision was finally made to sell the company to Spectris PLC.

Piezocryst will be organisationally anchored at Hottinger Brüel & Kjær (HBK), a subsidiary of the British Spectris PLC. HBK is a global leader in the field of test and measurement technology and has maintained a successful sales partnership with Piezocryst for decades - conversely, AVL is a customer of HBK. 

HBK has been part of the Spectris PLC group of companies since 2000. With the acquisition of Piezocryst, HBK is strengthening its portfolio, particularly in the sensor sector, and is thus consistently pursuing its growth strategy.

"We are convinced that we have found the ideal partner in HBK so that Piezocryst can continue to develop innovatively and penetrate new markets," explains Prof Helmut List, CEO of AVL. "At the same time, our strategic partnership secures innovation opportunities and access to existing solutions for our customers."

“Piezocryst is a proven, high-quality business that we have long-admired and will broaden our customer offering through its unique and cutting-edge technology, enabling us to further penetrate the high-temperature, high-precision sensor markets. We are delighted to welcome Piezocryst to the Group”, adds Andrew Heath, Chief Executive of Spectris.

Piezocryst and its 175 employees will remain at the current location in Graz. Through this close co-operation, AVL is expanding its strengths in the test bench business in particular and at the same time opening up new growth opportunities in various business areas.