Portland – Tektronix, godfather to Oregon’s technology industry, has a new owner.
East Coast conglomerate Danaher Corp. completed its spinoff of its older businesses over the weekend. In the process, Tektronix became part of a new company: Fortive, based in Everett.
Fortive would have had $6.2 billion in revenue last year, according to the new company’s financial filings. Its professional instrumentation group, which includes Tektronix, accounted for roughly half of that.
Founded in 1946, Tektronix birthed dozens of spinoff companies and helped lure Intel to Oregon.
Tektronix, though, has struggled since its 2007 sale to Danaher, with successive rounds of layoffs and declining sales. Performance improved early in 2015 but revenue in Fortive’s professional instrumentation group fell 4.7 percent last year and was down 6.6 percent in the most recent quarter.
