Smith & Nephew share price: Group snaps up Atracsys

Smith & Nephew (LON:SN) has inked a deal to buy Atracsys, a Switzerland-based provider of optical tracking technology, the blue-chip company has said. The news comes after the London-listed artificial hips and knees maker recently wrapped up the acquisition of the Brainlab orthopaedic joint reconstruction business.

Smith & Nephew’s share price has slipped marginally lower in early morning trade, having given up 0.18 percent to 1,686.00p as of 08:02 BST. The stock is underperforming the broader UK market, with the benchmark FTSE 100 having climbed into positive territory and currently standing 0.35 percent higher at 7,401.27 points. The group’s shares have added more than 23 percent to their value over the past year, as compared with about a 4.7-percent fall in the Footsie.

Smith & Nephew snaps up Atracsys

Smith & Nephew announced in a statement this morning that it had agreed to acquire Atracsys, a provider of optical tracking technology used in computer-assisted surgery, for an undisclosed amount. The FTSE 100 company explained that the Swiss group’s  fusionTrack 500 optical tracking camera will be a core enabling technology  for Smith & Nephew’s digital surgery and robotic ecosystem.

“The promise of computer assisted surgery with robotics is to provide faster, more accurate, reproducible results that enable surgeons to restore quality of life to more patients,” said Skip Kiil, Global President of Orthopaedics at Smith & Nephew, commented in the statement. “With the acquisition of Atracsys, we are securing what we believe to be the best-in-class position tracking technology for our next-generation robotic-assisted surgical system.”

Analysts on FTSE 100 company

Citywire reports that Shore Capital continues to see S&N as a ‘sell,’ arguing that it will take time for improvements in the bottom line of the company to show.

“We believe that sustainable growth, both on the top and bottom line, will take time and while the recent improvements and changes to the commercial structure are supportive, it is still relatively early,” the broker’s analyst Adam Barker pointed out.

According to MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus ‘hold’ rating, while the average target on the Smith & Nephew share price stands at 1,506.50p.