Stifel Nicolaus Reiterates Buy, $22 Target on Nanometrics

Stifel Nicolaus maintains its Buy rating and $22 target price on Nanometrics Inc.

after the company announced the acquisition of privately held Nanda Technologies for $23 million in cash. According to Stifel, “On the positive side, we believe that this deal provides entry for Nanometrics into a new market and one that expands Nanometrics' SAM by $300-400 million. By acquiring Nanda, Nanometrics will now compete in both the front end and back end macro defect inspection markets. …We believe one of the key differentiators for Nanda's solutions is its high throughput capabilities. In our view, high throughput can be a key differentiators for customers, particularly in macro defect inspection. NANO closed at $16.47 on Monday.