Samsung withdraws bid for SanDisk, hurts with words

Citing SanDisk's "rapidly declining prospects," Samsung has withdrawn its hostile takeover bid. In a letter just released by Vice Chairman and CEO Lee Yoon-woo, Samsung writes, "After nearly six months of efforts to pursue a transaction with no meaningful progress, we are withdrawing our proposal to acquire SanDisk." The letter then turned a shade more nasty with this:

"Your surprise announcements of a quarter billion dollar operating loss, a hurried renegotiation of your relationship with Toshiba and major job losses across your organisation all point to a considerable increase in your risk profile and a material deterioration in value, both on a stand-alone basis as well as to Samsung."

Analysts will remind you that the move does not mean that Samsung has abandoned its quest for SanDisk entirely. However, further action in the current economic climate seems unlikely give the Korean governments warning against major overseas mergers and acquisitions. Besides, just who is SanDisk? Can it really be trusted after being seen palling around with slotMusic?

Update: SanDisk just responded by blaming Samsung for the breakdown in negotiations while questioning its intentions. SanDisk then pivoted abruptly on heel and pretended to freshen-up its makeup while sneaking a wanton look back at Samsung in the reflection of its shareholder discontent. At least that's our read on the matter.

[A.C.E.R. @ Oct 22nd 2008 1:07AM]

Who wants an invite to Waffles?

[Eli @ Oct 22nd 2008 2:42AM]

[e-mail]

[Penguin Warlord @ Oct 22nd 2008 1:08AM]

And everyone knows that slotMusic has technological chlamydia. That shit is everywhere.

[Jim Bob @ Oct 22nd 2008 1:17AM]

I love that last line. Sounds like a McCain aid wrote this one.

[sr @ Oct 22nd 2008 1:40AM]

Wow that was well written. The Samsung CEO's letter that is.

[soulsaber @ Oct 22nd 2008 1:41AM]

Why not sansung?

[guns @ Oct 22nd 2008 2:29AM]

"pretended to freshen-up its makeup while sneaking a wanton look back at Samsung in the reflection of its shareholder discontent"

haha. I don't know, that's pretty well written I think.

[ethan @ Oct 22nd 2008 7:21AM]

Basically Samsung was just upset that Toshiba stepped in and gave sandisk some cash avoiding an almost necessary takeover. Toshiba and sandisk have an extremely strong and historical relationship. The only two companies i think that in the future might buy out sandisk- a major patent holder in the realms of 3 bits per cell and 4 bits per cell are Intel and obviously Toshiba- (if they had to). Sandisk is a very strong company with a bright future and Samy is clearly just sour grapes (plus i dont think they liked the way Eli acted in his conference call, pretending that he was still open to a offer while still striking a deal with Toshiba).

[Jash Sayani @ Oct 22nd 2008 4:28AM]

Samsung wants to buy SanDisk... Are you kidding me ??
SanDisk has much larger amount of users than Samsung and better quality standards...

SanDisk buying Samsung would make more sense....

[enki @ Oct 22nd 2008 4:44AM]

Based only on the fact that SanDisk has a total market cap of 6.5 billion and Samsung's HOLDINGS alone total more than 250 billion, your comment is absurd. Perhaps if SanDisk won the intergalactic trillion dollar lottery, it could make a bid for the world's LARGEST ELECTRONICS manufacturer.

[Jash Sayani @ Oct 22nd 2008 5:32AM]

Ok. I am not so much into the financial stuff so I dont know much. Was just saying that SanDisk products are much better....

[Backlin @ Oct 22nd 2008 9:30AM]

The userbase statement alone made it sound like you were talking about finances.

[charles @ Oct 22nd 2008 8:50AM]

Hmmm, what they're doing has to be some sort of illegal. Does anyone else think they're posturing like this: "As a result of these developments, we are no longer interested in acquiring SanDisk at $26/share, (but we'll take $12 a share, which might be the value of your stock after reminding your investors of all the "bad" moves you've made recently.)"?

[Matt G @ Oct 22nd 2008 10:03AM]

And entering into negotiations with Samsung to manipulate a deal out of Toshiba wouldn't be?

lol technically speaking, probably not, but like someone said, this is really Samsung people being pissed over the Toshiba deal, basically taking their ball and going home.

[darkmax @ Oct 22nd 2008 10:38AM]

Seeing that Samsung is one of the largest, if not the largest, electronic manufacturer in the world today, I really don't think they will just simply walked off and let those Sandisk shareholders laugh it off. I see a potentially more dangerous situation for Sandisk coming up. Perhaps a hostile takeover.

[darkmax @ Oct 22nd 2008 10:41AM]

Oops... meant to remove the last sentence.

[adrian @ Oct 22nd 2008 3:12PM]

Samsung will be back when Sandisk's value drops further.

[Nacho PATA @ Oct 22nd 2008 11:27AM]

Nothing beats a company into submission more than a hostile takeover ... except for a hostile retraction of a hostile takeover.