 | |
| Formerly | Astec (BSR) plc (1985–1999) |
|---|---|
| Industry | Electric power conversion |
| Founded | 1971; 55 years ago (1971) inHong Kong |
| Founders |
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| Defunct | 2014; 12 years ago (2014) |
| Fate | Dissolved |
Number of employees | 11,000 (2002)[1] |
| Parent |
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| Website | astec.com at theWayback Machine (archived 2008-01-02) |
Astec International plc, better known asAstec Power or justAstec, was an international electronics company originally based inHong Kong that manufacturedpower supply units andelectric power conversion hardware. It was a major vendor ofpower supply units for computer systems, and for a time it was the largest global manufacturer of power supplies.[1][2]
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Astec was founded inBritish Hong Kong in 1971[1] by Brian Christopher and Neal Stewart, as a producer ofDC-to-DC converter hardware.[3]: 41 [4] Before founding Astec, Christopher had previously worked forIBM, while Stewart was an academic physicist. The company was founded with HK$2.4 million in start-up capital.[5]
Astec's converters were initially purchased chiefly by manufacturers ofelectronic calculators, a market which was experiencing meteoric growth in the early 1970s. As the calculator market started to mature in the late 1970s, Astec started producingswitched-mode power supply for the burgeoningpersonal computer market.[4] In 1977, Astec signed a contract withApple Computer to become the primary supplier of PSUs for theirApple II family of home computer systems.[6][7] In 1981, IBM contracted Astec to manufacture the power supply unit of the originalIBM PC. Their relationship with IBM lasted well over a decade and won them contracts with other computer vendors such asHewlett-Packard.[6][8] Helped by these lucrative contracts, Astec grew to become the world's largest manufacturer of power supply units by 1985, taking the top spot fromLambda Electronics.[7][9] The company were helped especially by their relationship with Apple, which had netted Astec $50 million in sales alone by June 1983.[9]
Birmingham Sound Reproducers (BSR), a British manufacturer ofhome audio equipment, purchased a controlling 53.6-percent stake in the company in May 1980.[10] In 1981, BSR purchased the remaining 46.4 percent in Astec, acquiring the company outright.[11] BSR had been struggling from debt and diminished sales around the time of the purchase, with Astec being BSR's only profitable asset in the fiscal year 1980, generating £1.3 million while the rest of the company posted losses in excess of £17.6 million.[3]: 45 [12] The acquisition of Astec was a success for BSR and saved the parent company from bankruptcy.[12][13] By 1984, BSR began shedding its home audio assets as computer power supplies became the company's core business.[12] By the late 1980s, BSR was renamed to Astec (BSR) plc.[14]: D-1
In 1989,Emerson Electric, an American manufacturer of electronic equipment, purchased a controlling stake (between 45 and 50 percent) in Astec (BSR) plc in exchange for several of Emerson's subsidiaries, including its largest power supply unit manufacturer ACDC Electronics.[15] Emerson shortly after consolidated five of their other subsidiaries into Astec, massively growing the latter company.[2] In 1999 Emerson acquired the remaining half of Astec outright. Sales in Astec began dwindling in the early 2000s amid the concurrentglobal downturn in the computer industry,[2] and in 2006 Emerson folded Astec intoArtesyn, another large power conversion company which Emerson had acquired that year.[16] Astec remained a division of Artesyn until 2014, when it was folded into the newly formed Artesyn Embedded Technologies, a company formed in the aftermath of Emerson's divestiture of Artesyn in 2013.[17]