Business

Vermont programs backed OnLogic’s growth with up to $2.9 million in incentives. Now it’s selling for $675 million.

Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

OnLogic says no layoffs. Vermont has been paying it for adding jobs here, and those payments stop if the jobs don’t stay.

by Compass Vermont

Omron, a Japanese automation company, has agreed to buy OnLogic, the South Burlington maker of rugged industrial computers, for $675 million. The deal is expected to close around January 2027, subject to regulatory approval.

Along the way, Vermont offered the company up to $2.9 million in job-growth incentives over 13 years, plus hundreds of thousands of dollars in training grants, state records show.

The Deal

Roland and Lisa Groeneveld started the company as Logic Supply in 2003. OnLogic now has 301 employees, according to Omron’s disclosure of the deal, about 160 of them in Vermont, according to a question-and-answer document OnLogic provided to Compass Vermont. It builds computers that run factory machines and other equipment in conditions that would kill an office PC. Omron wants to pair those computers with its own sensors, robots and control systems as factories add artificial intelligence.

The numbers in Omron’s filing:

  • Sales: $154.2 million in 2025, up 26% from $122.3 million in 2024.
  • Price: about $4.40 for every dollar OnLogic sold last year.
  • Ownership: the Groenevelds own nearly 92% of the company, so they stand to receive the overwhelming majority of the money. The other 8% is held by 167 officers and employees, more than half the workforce, who bought shares in the company. The final amounts payable to either group have not been disclosed.

The $675 million is figured as if the company had no debt and no cash on hand. What the shareholders actually receive is adjusted for both.

Every current employee will also get a “thank you” bonus of about $1,500 for each month they’ve worked at OnLogic, according to the company’s Q&A:

  • 1 year: about $18,000
  • 5 years: about $90,000
  • 10 years: about $180,000

OnLogic declined to say when or how the bonus will be paid.

The companies say OnLogic will keep operating as an independent business inside Omron, with its brand, its management team led by CEO Sean Larkin, and its global headquarters in South Burlington, which opened in May 2024.

Asked whether there would be layoffs, the company’s Q&A answers: “No.” It says manufacturing and research stay in Vermont, and that there are no plans to combine OnLogic’s factories, in South Burlington and the Netherlands, with Omron’s. In an email to Compass Vermont, spokesperson Darek Fanton said the deal is built around “accelerating investment in our local workforce and product roadmaps.” The company did not say whether those commitments are written into the sale agreement.

What Vermont Put In

Most of the state’s support came through the Vermont Employment Growth Incentive, or VEGI. It’s the state’s main tool for paying companies to grow here. In plain English:

  • A company promises to add jobs and payroll beyond its normal growth.
  • A state board, the Vermont Economic Progress Council, has to find that the growth wouldn’t happen in Vermont, or would happen in a worse way, without the incentive.
  • The company gets nothing up front. It is paid in installments, and only after it hits its hiring and payroll targets each year. The money comes out of the extra tax revenue that growth produces.

The state has said why it offered the money. The council featured Logic Supply as a success story in its 2018 annual report. When the company needed to grow in 2013, the report said, its operations in the Netherlands and Taiwan offered a better return and had been its preferred places to expand. The incentive made Vermont a workable choice, and the company more than doubled its space here. The report said the same was true in 2017, when expanding in Europe was again the cheaper option.

According to the 2025 VEGI annual report, OnLogic has had three VEGI awards:

  • 2013, as Logic Supply: up to $352,912. Completed, with all targets met. The company had nearly 50 Vermont employees at the time, Vermont Business Magazine reported.
  • 2017: up to $757,684. The company asked to cancel this award in April 2021, and the money it had already received was taken back.
  • 2021: up to $2,506,884. Still active, and the company has started earning payments. The state projected it would come out $1.35 million ahead after paying the incentive.

Adding the two awards still standing, the state offered up to $2.9 million, about 42 cents for every $100 of the sale price. That’s the most the company could earn, not money already paid. For scale, the 2021 award, which pays out over several years, is larger than the $2.2 million the state paid to all VEGI companies combined for 2023.

The council doesn’t make public how much any single company has been paid. Jessica Hartleben, the council’s executive director, said information on whether OnLogic has met its targets, and why the 2017 award was canceled, is confidential under Vermont’s public records law.

The state also helped train OnLogic’s workers. The Vermont Training Program pays up to half the cost of training employees, after the training is done. It lists a $177,722.78 grant to OnLogic, completed in fiscal 2024, covering 185 employees at an average wage of $37.50 an hour. Logic Supply also received $108,724 from the same program between 2005 and 2016.

Since then, the company has grown from about 50 Vermont workers to 160, and Omron has agreed to buy it in a deal valued at $675 million.

What Happens When a Company Holding Incentives Is Sold

A sale doesn’t automatically cancel a VEGI award or require any money to be paid back. The council laid out how it handles sales in a 2017 policy review:

  • If a company is sold while it is still earning or receiving payments, it must tell the council. It has to say what kind of deal it is and what the new owner plans to do with the Vermont operation.
  • The council’s board then either keeps the incentives in place or ends them.
  • Either way, the company must keep meeting its job, payroll and investment requirements to receive the rest of its incentives. Falling below them can stop future payments.

Taking back money already paid is rarer. Under state law, the state can recover past payments, with interest, if the company stops filing its yearly claims, if its Vermont employment falls 90% or more during the award period, or if it knowingly gave the state false compliance statements. If the company doesn’t make the investments it promised, the state shrinks the award and takes back anything already paid beyond the smaller amount.

VEGI payments can be spread over as many as nine years, so the 2021 award is likely to still be paying out after Omron takes over.

Hartleben said the council expects to be notified of the OnLogic sale, and that there is no required deadline for filing that notice. Once it arrives, she said, council staff will review it and put it on the board’s agenda. Fanton said OnLogic complies with all notification and reporting requirements tied to state programs, including notifications to the council.

Vermont has been through this before. The 2017 review lists earlier sales of companies holding VEGI awards and shows no effect on their incentives in any of them:

  • Dealer.com, sold to Cox Automotive
  • Keurig Green Mountain, sold to JAB Holding
  • Seventh Generation, sold to Unilever
  • Maponics, sold to Pitney Bowes

More recently, in 2021, Magris Talc told the council it had bought Imerys Talc, that current management would stay, and asked for Imerys’ VEGI award to transfer. That award was for Imerys’ Ludlow operation. The council agreed by consensus, its June 2021 minutes show.

A separate Keurig award, from 2014, was terminated in 2018 after the company didn’t meet its targets, the 2025 report shows. The report does not tie that termination to the sale.

The council also pointed to a general benefit of sales like this one. When owners sell their shares, it wrote in the 2017 review, the state collects income and capital-gains tax from those who live in Vermont. It did not estimate that for any particular sale.

The OnLogic sale comes months after the Legislature decided to keep the program going. Act 128 of 2026 made VEGI permanent, ending the expiration date set for January 2027, and lowered the yearly cap on new awards.


Look It Up Yourself

The state publishes which companies have been offered incentives, so you can judge for yourself how the money is being used.

  • Job-growth incentives (VEGI): The council’s annual report lists every award since 2007. For each one, you’ll see the company’s name, its town, the maximum it could earn, and whether the award is active, completed, canceled or terminated. More is at accd.vermont.gov/economic-development/funding-incentives/vegi.
  • The OnLogic review: Council staff will put the review on the board’s agenda once OnLogic files its notice. The council posts its agendas and minutes on the Agency of Commerce and Community Development website.
  • Training grants: The Vermont Training Program’s annual report lists each business grant, the amount, and how many workers were trained.
  • What you won’t find: how much any single company has actually been paid. The state treats that as confidential.


Discover more from Vermont Daily Chronicle

Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.

Categories: Business

All topics and opinions welcome! No mocking or personal criticism of other commenters. No profanity, explicitly racist or sexist language allowed. Real, full names are now required. All comments without real full names will be unapproved or trashed.