Axsys Technologies (AXYS) Bought by General Dynamics for $53/Share - Closing Our Position

The saga is finally over... after putting itself up for sale Axsys Technologies (AXYS) has sold itself to General Dynamics (GD) for $54.

• Defense contractor General Dynamics Corp Inc (GD - News) said on Thursday that it planned to buy Axsys Technologies Inc (AXYS - News), a maker of surveillance and imaging systems, for $643 million.
• Axsys shares rose 6 percent in morning trading to $53, below the offer price of $54.
• The companies said in a statement that their respective boards had approved the proposed purchase, which is expected to close in the third quarter.

I am underwhelmed by the price - as this is a company that is going to make close to $3 this year and next... for whatever reason the market was not treating the stock well for a long time. Since both boards have approved the deal I am going to let go of the stock here at just over $53... maybe some one comes out of the blue and does a counteroffer but it seems unlikely. I re-entered the position in March [Mar 11: Bookkeeping: Starting Axsys Technologies as Company Puts Itself Up for Trade] [Mar 12: Axsys Technologies Confirms it has Put Itself Up for Sale] so as the stock surged from $28 to $35 we established our position. I made some purchases higher than that, so my cost was in the $37s - nice return for 3 months.

My work here is done...

p.s. if anyone has time I am curious if any large call purchases were done in the past 48 hours, you know how the market is. Leaky leaky. The stock didn't show any signs of imminent purchase so that was a nice change (no 15% spike in the last 10 minutes before the market closed yesterday)

[Apr 23, 2009: Axsys Technologies With Another Solid Result; Awaiting Word of Potential Sale]
[Feb 18, 2009: Axsys Technologies Solid Quarter]
[Dec 12, 2008: Time to Buy Axsys Technologies?]
[Dec 5, 2008: An Outperfomer in Defense: Axsys Technologies]
[Dec 12, 2008: Time to Buy Axsys Technologies?]

No position