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merger posts

CE-Oh no he didn't! Part LXI: Acer chief says Japanese PC companies "the weakest today"

by Nilay Patel, posted Jul 7th 2009 at 8:39PM

We're pretty sure we've heard Acer CEO Gianfranco Lanci say PC industry consolidation resulting in fewer players and lower component prices would be a good thing before, but he dressed it with a side of smackdown today: speaking to the New York Times, he said that Toshiba and Sony's PC businesses would be the first targets, since "the Japanese for sure are the weakest today." Ouch. It's especially harsh since Sony just broke down and released its first netbook this morning after claiming that the low-cost machines were a downward spiral, but that wasn't enough blood for Gianfranco: he also said that ASUS and Lenovo need to "think long and hard" about remaining independent companies. Yow -- sounds like someone's planning to do a little shopping, don't you think?

DirecTV to merge with majority shareholder Liberty Entertainment

by Darren Murph, posted May 4th 2009 at 9:52AM

Hmm, now isn't this interesting? Just months after Liberty Media reached out at the eleventh hour and rescued Sirius XM from imminent bankruptcy, it's now spinning off its entertainment division (Liberty Entertainment) and combining it with DirecTV (which Liberty already controls). We're told that the new Liberty Entertainment will hold 54 percent of DirecTV Group shares and 65 percent interest in the Game Show Network, not to mention three regional sports networks and a few other things not worth mentioning. The move is being made as the "John Malone-controlled vehicle looks to simplify its capital structure," and if all goes well, the paperwork should be completed by the end of the year. Oh, and so far as we can tell, DirecTV consumers won't even notice the shuffling going on behind the scenes.

T-Mobile UK apparently being pressured to merge or bust

by Donald Melanson, posted May 1st 2009 at 4:39PM

There's not exactly a ton of details on this one, but it looks like Deutsche Telekom CFO Timotheus Hoettges caused a bit of a stir at the company's recently shareholder meeting, where he reportedly suggested that T-Mobile UK would likely have to merge with another carrier or face the possibility of going bust. Specifically, Hoettges said that "in our view consolidation is a means to take excess capabilities out of the market," adding somewhat ominously that "nothing is unthinkable on our side." Of course, that immediately brings up the question of which carrier T-Mobile might merge with, and MarketingWeek suggests that one of the most likely suitors would be 3, which it currently ranked fifth in the UK market right behind T-Mobile, although O2, Orange, and Vodafone would no doubt also be in the running.

[Via Electronista]

NEC and Renesas looking to join forces against semiconductor evil

by Paul Miller, posted Apr 28th 2009 at 11:18AM

We're always up for a good semiconductor merger, and it looks like NEC Electronics and Renesas are prepping the biggest one we've seen this week. The two companies have agreed to team up, creating a combined force of $13 billion in yearly sales, and the largest chip company in Japan -- Renesas was already the product of a chip merger between Hitachi and Mitsubishi Electric. They'll still be behind Intel and Samsung in the overall game, but we won't hold that against them. Tokyo analysts believe this might lead to other "defensive" mergers by other Japanese chipmakers, but we'll have to wait and see. NEC and Renesas hope to finish talks by July and become a single company by April of next year.

[Via Electronista]

Western Digital enters SSD market via $65m SiliconSystems acquisition

by Darren Murph, posted Mar 30th 2009 at 11:07AM

Man, the consolidation efforts are really heating up. Just days after Cisco forked out a small fortune to acquire Pure Digital, HDD mainstay Western Digital has penned a check for $65 million in cold, hard cash in order to acquire SiliconSystems, Inc. Said outfit is an Aliso Viejo, California-based supplier of solid-state drives for the embedded systems market, and rather than wasting any more time falling behind in the SSD realm, WD figured it prudent to just buy the technology it needed to position itself as a legitimate competitor. WD has already made clear that it hopes to sell SSDs for the netbook, client and enterprise markets, and given that integration will begin "immediately," we're hoping to see some shipping products sooner rather than later.

Cisco said to be buying Pure Digital for around $500 million

by Darren Murph, posted Mar 9th 2009 at 12:39AM

Believe us people, popularity pays off. Just ask Pure Digital CEO Jonathan Kaplan, who is reportedly scrambling for ways to spend $80 million of the $500 million Cisco Systems is about to hand over in order to acquire the company. Granted, none of this has been confirmed just yet, but TechCrunch has it that the deal is all but done. Reportedly, Cisco's interested in bringing the firm into its portfolio in order to further push high-bandwidth using services. Obviously, user generated HD video fits pretty perfectly into that agenda. We suspect we'll be hearing more on the subject as the work week begins in earnest, but it sure sounds like Linksys is about to get a new cousin.

Hitachi acquires Fabrik, looks to expand market presence

by Darren Murph, posted Feb 24th 2009 at 11:44AM

We keep hearing that it's a buyer's market out there, and for anyone with any amount of cash (that'd be Hitachi, in this scenario), the getting is pretty great. Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (GST) has just announced that it has snapped up Fabrik, Inc., a privately-held supplier of personal and professional storage solutions. You may be more familiar with the said company's brands, as G-Technology and SimpleTech tend to ring bells much better than a name easily mistaken for clothing. According to Steve Milligan, President of Hitachi GST, the acquisition will soon become "the cornerstone for the next phase of Hitachi's business transformation," though he certainly didn't bother to elaborate. Who knows -- maybe one day soon we really will see Hitachi taking on the likes of Western Digital and LaCie in the external sector.

Fujitsu and Toshiba reach agreement on hard drive business deal

by Donald Melanson, posted Feb 17th 2009 at 2:54PM

It's not exactly a huge surprise at this point, but Fujitsu and Toshiba have announced today that they've signed a memorandum of understanding on the transfer of Fujitsu's hard drive business to Toshiba, and that they plan to conclude a transfer contract "at an early date." To make the transition as smooth as possible, Fujitsu says it'll spinning off all its HDD-related business into a separate company in the interim, which Toshiba will buy an 80 percent stake in and make a Toshiba Group subsidiary. Then, once things are fully transitioned, Toshiba will buy up the remaining 20 percent and make the company a wholly owned subsidiary. Notably absent from today's announcement, however, is any word of a dollar figure, though previous reports had pegged the deal at anywhere from $335 to $447 million. Toshiba also doesn't seem like it'll be resting on its laurels once the deal is complete, saying that it hopes to increase its overall HDD market share 20 percent by the year 2015.

CSR gobbles up GPS chipmaker SiRF

by Donald Melanson, posted Feb 10th 2009 at 8:58PM

Well, it looks like a few pesky patent issues weren't enough to keep CSR, mostly known for its Bluetooth chips, from snapping up omnipresent GPS chipmaker SiRF, with the two companies today announcing that they're set to fully combine their companies into one giant chipmaking operation. Under the all-share transaction valued at some $132.7 million, SiRF shareholders will get 27 percent of the newly formed company, to be known as CSR, while two SiRF directors will also get seats on the CSR board. Any further details are a bit hard to come by but, as CNET's Business Tech points out, CSR has increasingly been focusing on all-in-one solutions combining Bluetooth, WiFi, and whatnot, so it would stand to reason that SiRF's GPS know-how could be added to the mix.

Toshiba said to be nearing deal to buy Fujitsu's hard drive business

by Donald Melanson, posted Jan 14th 2009 at 9:39PM

Hitachi may be out of the picture (if it was ever actually in the picture to begin with), but it looks like Toshiba is now very close to buying Fujitsu's hard drive business in a deal that's reported to be worth between 30 and 40 billion yen, or anywhere from $335 to $447 million. That would make Toshiba the world's largest supplier of hard drives for laptops and, according to Reuters, it could be all but a done deal by the end of the month, if a supposed meeting between company execs planned for this week goes as expected. The deal wouldn't include Fujitsu's plant in Nagano Prefecture, however, or the hard drive operations of its Yamagata Fujitsu subsidiary -- those would apparently be sold off separately for some extra cash if Fujitsu decides to exit the hard drive business altogether.

Verizon completes Alltel acquisition, now covers 83.7 million customers as nation's largest wireless network

by Paul Miller, posted Jan 9th 2009 at 10:49AM

As promised, Verizon and Alltel tied the knot today, in a $5.9 billion acquisition, plus $22.9 billion of Alltel debt. Combined they form the nation's largest wireless carrier, with 83.7 customers (12.9 of those from the Alltel fold). For the time being, Alltel customers can sit tight and continue to use their devices and service plans as usual, with re-branding operations to happen Q2 and Q3 of 2009.

Verizon and Alltel to join in holy matrimony January 9th

by Chris Ziegler, posted Jan 4th 2009 at 10:49PM

Following a good half year of courtship while the regulatory miscellany ran its course, Verizon's finally ready to take the plunge and call this $5.9 billion deal done. The combined juggernaut will amass a staggering 78 million subscribers, putting it roughly 3 million ahead of its closest rival, AT&T, though it'll do so at the cost of assuming some $22.9 billion in Alltel debt. Ultimately, the merger means some positions at Alltel headquarters in Little Rock, Arkansas will get axed -- but hey, AT&T Mobility HQ's just a stone's throw away in Atlanta, so Verizon's headcount loss could ultimately be AT&T's gain.

[Via Phone Scoop]

Panasonic to officially purchase controlling stake in Sanyo for $6.4B

by Nilay Patel, posted Dec 17th 2008 at 11:27PM

It took a little longer than we'd heard due to some last-minute complications, but Panasonic's deal to buy almost all of Sanyo has finally been approved by Sanyo's major shareholders. Under the deal, Panny will buy out some 70 percent of Sanyo for ¥131 ($1.50) a share, making the total deal worth some ¥560B ($6.41B). That'd be lot of scratch even if the economy wasn't in the tank, but Panny thinks it'll be worth it to take over Sanyo's position in the solar and rechargeable battery markets, which it thinks are due to blow up. Er, not blow up like that -- in the fun-filled raining-cash way. You get the idea. Xactis for everyone!

MiTAC buys Magellan consumer products division: 'take it away, Maestro'

by Darren Murph, posted Dec 15th 2008 at 9:24AM

MiTAC already did a bit of GPS reshuffling to start the year off, and now it seems a bit more of that will be required. Magellan -- the makers of the RoadMate, Maestro and Triton navigation systems -- has entered into a "definitive agreement to sell its consumer products division to MiTAC International," which goes a long way in explaining why development was suddenly halted last month on the promising Maestro Elite 5340 connected GPS. The deal is expected to close in January, and financial terms aren't being publicly disclosed at present time. So, what's this mean for both outfits at CES next month? It's hard to say, but we wouldn't count on a whole lot of new PNDs from Magellan. Hear that TomTom? You've got some slack to cover.

[Via GPSTracklog, thanks Rich]

FTC clears Verizon acquisition of Alltel, last hurdle crossed

by Donald Melanson, posted Dec 10th 2008 at 2:36PM

It's already made it past the Department of Justice and the FCC after making a few concessions, and Verizon has now cleared the last major hurdle blocking its acquisition of Alltel, with the Federal Trade Commission today giving the deal its all-important stamp of approval. Unlike the other regulatory agencies, the FTC apparently didn't require that Verizon make any further concessions, and instead simply approved an early termination of their antitrust review and indicated that they had "no objections." For those keeping track, the deal easily pushes Verizon past AT&T to become the largest wireless carrier in the United States and, as we have heard, it'll also likely have the side effect of some job cuts from the Alltel benches.

[Via RCR Wireless]