Qioptic

In 1999 Avimo, another optical designer and manufacturer was partly acquired by Thomson-CSF and completely acquired in 2001. The whole organisation was established at St Asaph in 2002 as Thales-HTO (UK) (Thales High Tech Optics) [184]. Yet another upheaval was to happen in January 2005 when Thales announced the sale of its optical components group Thales-HTO which by now included facilities in the U.S.A., Singapore, Germany, and Hungary and of course the St Asaph facility to a UK based private equity group called Candover Investments plc of London.  Thales stated that they wished to focus on their core systems integration capability. The group was rebranded as Qioptic with its headquarters at St Asaph in North Wales.

In December 2010 Candover Investments plc announced that Qioptiq, was being prepared for a possible sale in the second quarter of 2011 by NM Rothschild. Since 2010 Qioptic has been under the management of Arle Capital Partners – a private equity partnership formed via a buyout of Candover in the wake of the global financial crisis of 2008. Finally in October 2013 Qioptic was sold to the diversified US-based Excelitas Technologies.